Those interested in stereotyping and intersectional discrimination might not want to miss the Court’s judgment in Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morais v. Portugal. The compensation awarded domestically to a 50-year-old woman who could not have sexual relations after a failed operation was reduced, partly, because of age and gender stereotypes. After rejecting the use of gender stereotypes of women as primary child-carers in Konstantin Markin v. Russia, the Court now condemns the use of stereotypes about female sexuality in domestic judicial reasoning. In this post, I briefly discuss two points the judgment made me think about: the need for comparison in discrimination cases and implicit stereotyping.
Month: September 2017
New Book: When Human Rights Clash at the European Court of Human Rights – Conflict or Harmony?
We are pleased to announce the recent publication of When Human Rights Clash at the European Court of Human Rights: Conflict or Harmony? by Oxford University Press (Stijn Smet and Eva Brems, eds). The volume tackles both the existence and resolution of human rights conflicts at the ECtHR. It contains contributions by Samantha Besson, Eva Brems, Leto Cariolou, Ian Leigh, Javier Martínez-Torrón, Dolores Morondo Taramundi, Russell Sandberg, Stijn Smet, Sébastien Van Drooghenbroeck, Dirk Voorhoof and Lorenzo Zucca. In the book’s first part, contributors propose a range of general approaches to human rights clashes. In its second part, they engage in concerted scholarly debate about four leading ECtHR judgments on human rights conflicts: Axel Springer AG v. Germany; Evans v. The United Kingdom; Fernández Martínez v. Spain; and Eweida v. The United Kingdom.
This is the volume’s description:
The notion of conflict rests at the heart of the judicial function. Judges are routinely asked to resolve disputes and defuse tensions. Yet, when judges are called upon to adjudicate a purported conflict between human rights, they face particular challenges and must address specific questions. Some of these concern the very existence of human rights conflicts. Can human rights really conflict with one another, in terms of mutual incompatibility? Or should human rights be interpreted in harmony with one another? Other questions concern the resolution of real conflicts. To the extent that human rights do conflict, how should these conflicts be resolved? To what extent is balancing desirable? And if it is desirable, which understanding of balancing should judges employ? This book seeks to provide both theoretical and practical answers to these questions. It debates both the existence and resolution of human rights conflicts, in the specific context of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The contributors put forth principled and pragmatic arguments and propose theoretical as well as practical approaches, whilst firmly embedding their proposals in the case law of the European Court. Doing so, this book provides concrete ways forward in the ongoing debate on conflicts of rights at Europe’s human rights court.
Readers of the Strasbourg Observers Blog can use promotional code ALAUTHC4 to receive a 30% discount when ordering the book directly from the OUP website (only for individual (non-trade) customers; limit of ten copies; valid until 31 December 2017).
The subscription of Belgium to Strasbourg in detention cases: Rooman v. Belgium & Tekin and Arslan v. Belgium
By Rebecca Deruiter – PhD Researcher, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Ghent University[1]
Two rulings convicted the Belgian state for violating Article 3 in the case of Rooman v. Belgium and Article 2 in the case of Tekin and Arslan v. Belgium. Both these cases concern mentally-ill offenders for which the Belgian state already has a deplorable reputation. These judgments reveal, once again, structural problems which are still present in the Belgian penitentiary system: the lack of (after)care for mentally-ill offenders and the inadequate training of prison staff. Continue reading