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→International human rights law in the United Kingdom
The UK signed the ''Convention on the Rights of the Child'' (CRC) on 19 April 1990 an formally ratified the CRC treaty on 16 December 1991.<ref name="ratstatus" /> Article 2 of the CRC require the UK to respect and ensure the rights specified in the CRC to each child within its jurisdiction.
===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.
==The ethics of non-therapeutic circumcision==