Friday 17 May 2019

New Book on the ECHR and Military Operations

Stuart Wallace of the University of Cambridge has published a new book on 'The Application of the European Convention on Human Rights to Military Operations' with Cambridge University Press. The book gives a systematic overview of the key discussions on the topic in the past years, including of course extraterritorial application of the ECHR, but also substantive and procedural obligations under the right to life, and derogations, amongst others. This is the abstract:

'The European Convention on Human Rights is being applied to military operations of every kind from internal operations in Russia and Turkey, to international armed conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere. This book exposes the challenge that this development presents to the integrity and universality of Convention rights. Can states realistically investigate all instances where life is lost during military operations? Can the Convention offer the same level of protection to soldiers in combat as it does to its citizens at home? How can we reconcile the application of the Convention with other international law applicable to military operations? This book offers detailed analysis of how the Convention applies to military operations of all kinds. It highlights the creeping relativism of the standards applied by the European Court of Human Rights to military operations and offers guidance on how to interpret and apply the Convention to military operations.'