Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee 26 November 2025
In the light of the direction that we have been given by SPICe and the Scottish Government, I ask the committee to consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standard orders, on the basis that the Scottish Government is committed to a new human rights bill that will incorporate further international human rights standards into Scots law; the national task force on human rights leadership did not recommend incorporation of the ICCPR into the new human rights bill; and, although the observation and implementation of international obligations are not specifically reserved under the Scotland Act 1998, provision in that respect applies only to devolved matters that are within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. This route cannot be used to, in effect, extend the Parliament’s powers by claiming that the incorporated international treaty provisions now allow the Parliament or the Scottish Government to do anything that would previously have been beyond devolved competence.