Launch of the Court's Knowledge Sharing Platform

On 18 October 2022, the Court's Knowledge Sharing platform (ECHR-KS) was launched, a platform developed by the Registry. On the platform, up-to-date data and analyses of developments in the Court's case-law through specific Convention Articles/Transversal Themes are shared. The platform thereby complements other sources for the Court's case-law such as HUDOC. 

The Knowledge Sharing platform is available in the two official languages of the Court, English and French. The information available is updated on a weekly basis. 

In this video the Court's Registrar, Marialena Tsirli, explains the functioning of the platform and how to use it. In addition, this video will help you navigate through the system.

Video Interview with Court President Robert Spano

Current Court President Robert Spano is in his last few weeks at the helm of the European Court of Human Rights. To look back at his presidency of the Court over the last 2.5 years, he has been interviewed this month by professor Mikael Rask Madsen, the director of iCourts at the University of Copenhagen. The interview, following a similar earlier one done in 2020, provides a broad panorama of the Court and it's case-law and is partly based on questions collected from ECHR experts across Europe. Well worth to watch this interview video!

New Book: Case Law Compendium on the Death Penalty and Extrajudicial Execution

Jeremy McBride (Barrister at Monckton Chambers, London, specialising in cases before the ECHR and the UNHRC) has published the book entitled Compendium of case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the death penalty and extrajudicial execution, with Council of Europe  (2022). Below is a brief summary of the book:

 

'The compendium’s aim is to assist national judges, prosecutors and lawyers from the 46 member states of the Council of Europe to deal with extradition or deportation cases when there is a risk of the death penalty being imposed in third countries or of extrajudicial execution. It also aims at enabling legal professionals from countries where the death penalty still exists to develop arguments based upon the reasoning of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. It contains relevant extracts from the Court’s case law, structured in a user-friendly way.'

Hybrid Colloquium on Margin of Appreciation

This Thursday 13 October, in the afternoon, Maastricht University, is organising a hybrid colloquium entitled 'The Margin of Appreciation as the Bridge Between the Universal Presence of Human Rights and Their Concrete Implementation'. The full programme can be found here. This is the abstract of the event:

'In the last two decades, the margin of appreciation has become a cornerstone of the Convention system, but it remains a contested and undertheorized concept. Stijn Smet argues that the European Court has never fully explained exactly what the margin of appreciation is or does. J.G. Merrills notes that the margin of appreciation is fraught with difficulty, and Steven Greer concludes that the most striking characteristic of its application remains its casuistic, uneven, and largely unpredictable nature. This ambiguity primarily concerns the question of when and why the Court grants states a ‘certain’, a ‘narrow’, or a ‘wide’ margin of appreciation. On the one hand, this elusive character enables the margin of appreciation to function as a ‘lubricant’ in the Convention system. On the other hand, this elusive character might undermine central legal principles such as legal certainty and the rule of law.

This colloquium will analyze the margin of appreciation as the bridge between the universal presence of human rights and their concrete implementation. It is organized by the Department of Foundations and Methods of Law in collaboration with the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights.

This colloquium will be conducted in a hybrid format offering attendees the option to join virtually via Zoom or in-person in Maastricht.'

New Book on Private Actors and the Procedure Before the European Court

A bit over a week ago, my Utrecht Law School colleague and SIM fellow Claire Loven successfully defended her PhD dissertation. Followers of this blog may know her as the moderator of our MOOC on the ECHR. Dr Loven's monograph has already been published with Intersentia Publishers in the Human Rights Research Series and is entitled Fundamental Rights Violations by Private Actors and the Procedure Before the European Court of Human Rights. The PhD thesis was written under the supervision of my Utrecht colleagues professors Janneke Gerards and Cedric Ryngaert. I had the pleasure of serving as a member of the reading committee and can attest that it is lucidly written and contains a very thorough and well-researched analysis of what dr Loven has dubbed 'verticalised cases' before the European Court. This is the abstract:

'Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights prescribes that individual applications must be directed against one of the Convention States. Consequently, private actors involved in proceedings against other private actors before domestic courts must complain about State (in)action in their application to the European Court of Human Rights. In other words, originally ‘horizontal’ conflicts must be ‘verticalised’ in order to be admissible. Although such verticalised cases make up a large portion of the Court’s case law, the particular nature of these cases, as well as procedural issues that may arise in them, has not received much attention. To fill this gap, this book offers a detailed examination of verticalised cases coming before the Court. The characteristics of and the Court’s approach to verticalised cases are explored by means of an in-depth analysis of four types of verticalised cases (cases related to one’s surroundings; cases involving a conflict between the right to reputation and private life and the right to freedom of expression; family life cases; and employer-employee cases). On the basis of this analysis, it is argued that the Court’s current approach to verticalised cases poses problems for private actors, Convention States and the Court itself. In presenting recommendations for the resolution of these problems, the book concludes with a proposal for a new approach to verticalised cases, consisting of a redesigned third-party intervention procedure.'

Congrats once again, Claire!

New Issue ECHR Law Review

The newest issue of the ECHR Law Review is out now (vol. 3, issue 3). The issue contains an editorial note, two guest editorials, a case report, a book review and research articles. The contributions discuss such topics as the judicial discretion of the European Court of Human Rights, the practice of national courts to request advisory opinions under Protocol 16 and utilitarianism, to name a few. This is the table of contents:

* Vassilis P Tzevelekos and Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, 'The Judicial Discretion of the European Court of Human Rights: The Years of Plenty, and the Lean Years'

* Françoise Tulkens, 'Judicial Activism v Judicial Restraint: Practical Experience of This (False) Dilemma at the European Court of Human Rights'

* George Tsebelis, 'What Determines the Judicial Discretion of the European Court of Human Rights?'

* Lize Glas and Jasper Krommendijk, 'A Strasbourg Story of Swords and Shields: National Courts’ Motives to Request an Advisory Opinion from the ECtHR Under Protocol 16'

* Jeremy Letwin, 'A Utilitarian Account of Article 3 ECHR'

* Sarah Ganty, 'The Double-Edged ECtHR Lăcătuş Judgment on Criminalisation of Begging: Da Mihi Elimo Sinam Propter Amorem Dei'

* Paul Gragl, 'Cedric Marti, Framing a Convention Community: Supranational Aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights'

Updated Factsheet on Mass Surveillance and the ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights has published a revised version of its factsheet on Mass Surveillance. This newest update of September 2022 includes the leading cases ranging from the classic 1970s landmark judgment in Klass and others v Germany to the Haščák v. Slovakia case of this Summer. It also indicates pending applications on the issue.

All factsheets, on a wide range of issues, can be found here.

Introducing Our New Assistant Editor

Dear readers of the ECHR Blog, we are very pleased to inform you that the editorial team of our blog will be expanded. As of this week, Matilda Rados is joining us as assistant editor.

 

Matilda Rados is junior lecturer in international law and human rights at Utrecht University and editor in chief of the Utrecht Journal of International and European Law. She is currently coaching the Utrecht University team of the Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition. Matilda specializes in the ECHR and transitional justice.

 

We are very happy to add Matilda to this blog's editorial team. Together we will run the blog, add new items and can be approached for any ECHR-related conference announcements, publications, etc. Matilda, welcome on board! 

 

Kind wishes, Antoine Buyse and Kushtrim Istrefi

 

New Court Vice-Presidents and Section Presidents

The election of the Court's new President yesterday entitled a reshuffling of a number off other key functions within the European Court of Human Rights. In the same plenary meeting yesterday, the Court's judges elected amongst themselves two new Vice-Presidents and two Section Presidents of the Court. The two new Vice-Presidents are Georges Ravarani, judge in respect of Luxembourg, and Marko Bošnjak, judge in respect of Slovenia. The two new Section Presidents are Pere Pastor Vilanova, judge in respect of Andorra, and judge Arnfinn Bårdsen, judge in respect of Norway. These judges will take up their duties on 1 November. Good luck to all of them! The full composition of the European Court of Human Rights can be found here.

Siofra O'Leary New President of the Court

Today, the European Court of Human Rights has elected Síofra O’Leary, judge in respect of  Ireland, as its new President. Síofra O’Leary is the very first female President since the creation of the European Court of Human Rights. 

She joined the Court in 2015 and became section president as well as vice-president of the Court at the start of this current year. After having studied law in Ireland in the 1980s, judge O'Leary wrote and defended her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence and subsequently was connected to universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland. For the almost two decades before joining the Strasbourg Court, she worked in European Union Law at the sister Court in Luxembourg, where she was Référendaire, Chef de Cabinet and Head of Unit. With this strong previous background in EU law and her extensive experience on the Convention, she might be the perfect fit for the era that may, if negotiations this time go well, lead to the generations-long-awaited accession of the EU to the ECHR. Who knows what the future will bring.

Judge O’Leary will succeed the Court's current President Robert Spano  on 1 November 2022. Good luck to the Court's new President!