Disruptively Assembling

This chapter discusses the right to protest and assemble disruptively. It plots the development of the protection of such a right by international human rights bodies, but suggests ways in which the right might be under threat: first, through the European Court of Human Rights articulating what is, and is not, at the core of the right in Article 11, to assemble peacefully, and secondly, when it might conflict with other countervailing rights, such as privacy and the right peacefully to enjoy possessions. It concludes by offering some wider conceptual, contextual or socio-legal observations on the right to protest disruptively. A construction of “core” (and non-core) activities, risks reifying certain types of protest – the staged, large-scale march and rallies, and also requires us to ask “disruption to whom?” and “for what purpose?” It suggests that the real problem with realising the right to disruptive protest is as much a function of surrounding social structures and institutions as it is of strictly delineated human rights laws and norms, because of the difficulty of effective enforcement of the right “on the ground”.