Out of the horror of holocaust camps such as Belsen, Auschwitz and Dachau, a new order was established. The atrocities inflicted on countless innocents rocked the world and brought a Europe-wide consensus that such scenes should never be witnessed again.

In Britain, a team of lawyers toiled alongside foreign counterparts to lay the ground rules, a framework for people's rights, their liberties and ultimately their freedom. Half a century later and the 'lot' will again fall to the lawyers to bring those fundamental sensibilities into practice in courtrooms across the land.

Strip away the legal jargon, laid down with great aplomb decades previously, and there is much about the Convention - brought into being in British law under the Human Rights Act - which is refreshingly common sense. You, the humble citizen, have the right to live (article 2), the right to liberty and security (article 5) and the right to a fair trail (article 6). Slavery and enforced labour (article 4), torture and inhuman treatment (article 3) are all banned.

So why has it caused such outrage, procrastination and widespread fear that the very fabric of Britishness is crumbling under pressure from Johnny Foreigner in Brussels or Strasbourg?

Do not doubt that there are some insane moments quivering, waiting in anticipation of raising their peculiar heads above the parapet. Shame on the poor trainee barrister in Belgium who, in a feeble attempt to dip out of compulsory pro-bono work helping the poor, argued unsuccessfully that this was licensed slavery and an infringement on his liberty under article four of the Convention.

In Scotland, where the act has been in force for a year now, motorists have been climbing the court walls in protest against speeding prosecutions secured by speed cameras. They claim the cameras only capture the car and its registration number. Police cannot prove who was driving the car and it is a contravention of one's right not to implicate oneself in a crime (article 6) to force owners to admit they were behind the wheel.

Campaigners for the convention have long argued that there are far more positive aspects to the Human Rights Act which outweigh the negatives. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, yesterday dismissed critics who claimed the Act was a charter for crackpots and criminals as scaremongering "prophets of doom". He says: "This act will prove to be a major legislative monument of this Government. It will promote a culture of respect for human rights which will affect and be applied by all government departments and bodies exercising public functions. We shouldn't see it in terms of winners and losers."

Many British lawyers, echoing the very forefathers responsible for the convention, have eagerly awaited the act's implementation. Among them is Cherie Booth QC who, with like-minded barristers, has set up special chambers to deal with human rights work.

Closer to home, Northumbria University has its own law unit which gives final year students an opportunity to get a taste for real life cases under the watchful eye of qualified professionals. Budding lawyers are planning to take some human rights case work and Kevin Kerrigan, a human rights lawyer who runs the unit, believes the act is a positive step forward.

"It imposes a duty on all public bodies to respect citizens' human rights," he says: "They have never had that duty before. It is a brand new duty, a legal duty which affects government ministers, local government, police, health authorities, individual doctors giving treatment under the NHS, mental health and social services and state schools.

"The whole gamut of the State is effectively required now from today to respect people's human rights. Failure to do so can, and will lead to legal action from aggrieved citizens."

The aggrieved citizens are already on the march. A cluster of legal actions were in the courts yesterday, bright and early, ready to test the new found freedoms, the new found rights. Les Withey from Devon began his case to have the Government's system of bereavement payments, normally given to widows, extended to widowers. He is claiming sex discrimination under the act. Campaign group Liberty is to begin a test case which could allow children conceived with sperm from donors the right to obtain details about their biological fathers. Brother and sister Adam and Jo Rose are to claim that a law which bans disclosure of information about sperm donors breaches the right to respect for private and family life.

Human rights sceptics have lambasted the convention as a cash cow for astute barristers and lawyers. They have lambasted the very institution that was responsible for laying the foundation stone for a better society, a society in which horrendous atrocities such as Belsen and Auschwitz would never again rear their ugly heads.

But the head of that institution in this country, the Lord Chancellor, stands unrepentant in the face of such criticism. He says: "I find it depressing when the floodgates argument is used. Do we want to support people's human rights or not? Surely the answer is yes."