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===Human Rights Act 1998===
The United Kingdom has long been a member of the [https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal Council of Europe] and therefore subject to the [https://rm.coe.int/1680a2353d European Convention on Human Rights]. Under that Convention the United Kingdom may be sued in the [https://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home&c European Court of Human Rights] (Strasbourg) for alleged human rights violations.
Certain parts of the Convention seems applicable to the non-therapeutic circumcision of minor boys:
* Article 3: Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
* Article 5: Everyone has a right to liberty and security of person.
* Article 8: Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
The case of ''A v. United Kingdom'' (1998) involved the beating of a child with a garden cane. The court ruled:
<blockquote>
States required to take measures designed to ensure individuals not ill-treated in breach of Article 3 by other private individuals – children entitled to protection, through effective deterrence, against such treatment.<ref>{{REFdocument
|title=A. v United Kingdom. [1998] 2 FLR 959
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/A_v_UK1998/
|contribution=
|last=
|first=
|publisher=Circumcision Reference Library
|format=
|date=1998
|accessdate=2021-09-07
}}</ref>
</blockquote>
The case clearly established the right of children to protection. Nevertheless, no known cases have applied international human rights law specifically to the practice of non-therapeutic child circumcision in the UK.
The human rights provisions of the Convention have now been brought into domestic law by the [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents Human Rights Act 1998], so violations of human rights law could be litigated in the domestic courts of the UK.
→Legal matters: Remove section.
}}</ref>
</blockquote>
===Forward into the 21st century===