Nick Clegg has issued a trenchant defence of human rights laws, setting out their strengths and saying his party will not let Conservatives water them down should there be a fresh push to renegotiate legislation.

In an article for the Guardian, the deputy prime minister acknowledges much common ground with the prime minister, David Cameron, who in recent weeks has increasingly given voice to the frustrations of cabinet ministers, MPs and his activist base that European human rights legislation has overruled British courts and must be renegotiated. A European ruling earlier this year that prisoners must be given the vote despite parliament voting for the opposite infuriated Conservatives.

Writing at the weekend, Cameron said: "Though it won't be easy, though it will mean taking on parts of the establishment, I am determined we get a grip on the misrepresentation of human rights.

"We are looking at creating our own British bill of rights. We are going to fight in Europe for changes to the way the European court works and we will fight to ensure people understand the real scope of these rights and do not use them as cover for rules or excuses that fly in the face of common sense."

Clegg agrees there is a problem with "misrepresentation" of what rights people enjoy and says he supports government moves to reform the European court of human rights.

But his article is different in emphasis from the prime minister's and represents the first restatement that his party will not brook a profound renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the Strasbourg court. Clegg describes the incorporation of the European convention on human rights into domestic legislation under the human rights act as "a hugely positive step". He writes: "As we continue to promote human rights abroad, we must ensure we work to uphold them here at home. We have a record we should be proud of and never abandon."

While Cameron was careful to criticise the interpretation, he is under pressure from activists to go radically further, with some calling for a complete withdrawal.

The home secretary, Theresa May, said in a speech last month that she would be arguing for a new definition of article 8 of the European convention, which guarantees the right to a private and family life.

By contrast, Clegg says: "Court judgments themselves tend to tell a very different story about our rights culture than tabloid papers. The Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights have been instrumental in preventing local authorities from snooping on law-abiding families, in removing innocent people from the national DNA database, in preventing rapists from cross-examining their victims in court, in defending the rights of parents to have a say in the medical treatment of their children, in holding local authorities to account where they have failed to protect children from abuse, in protecting the anonymity of journalists' sources, and in upholding the rights of elderly married couples to be cared for together in care homes."

Clegg also appears implicitly to criticise Cameron's satisfaction with tough "exemplary" sentences for those involved in the riots alongside backing families of rioters losing council homes and benefits.

Defending the concept of human rights in his article, Clegg says that a view is being pandered to that believes no rights come without responsibilities and that "a criminal ought to forfeit their very humanity the moment they step out of line, and that the punishment of lawbreakers ought not to be restrained by due process".

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti welcomed Clegg's intervention and said it was "certainly not before time". "The coalition was stitched together on a civil liberties ticket. You can't talk human rights in the Arab spring whilst trashing them at home all year round," she said.

In November, the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, will push for "important operational changes" to the ECHR when Britain takes over the chairmanship of the Council of Europe. Separately, Clarke and Clegg head a commission into the establishment of a British bill of rights which would redefine the UK's obligation under the ECHR. In order to sate the desires of the Tory backbench, a separate commission has been set up which will produce a distinctively Conservative position on the ECHR before the next general election.