The Strasbourg Observers Blog aims to bring new judgments of the European Court of Human Rights to the attention of interested scholars, practitioners and students. To that end, bloggers offer critical analyses of the legal reasoning of the ECtHR by way of short commentaries. The Blog also aims to assess recent legal, political and social developments in Europe through the lens of the Court’s case law.
The Strasbourg Observers Blog was founded in April 2010 by Professor Eva Brems and six Ph.D. researchers (Alexandra Timmer, Laurens Lavrysen, Lourdes Peroni, Maris Burbergs, Saïla Ouald Chaib and Stijn Smet) working under her supervision at the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University. The Blog originated within the framework of the European Research Council-funded project “Strengthening the European Court of Human Rights: More Accountability through Better Legal Reasoning”. The project’s main objective was to study the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law with the aim of proposing innovative solutions to strengthen the consistency and persuasiveness of the Court’s legal reasoning so as to improve its accountability and transparency.
Since its creation in April 2010, the Blog has attracted a growing number of contributors from across Europe and beyond. Scholars from all ranks of academia, as well as practitioners and civil society activists have actively contributed to the Blog’s success, making it a forum for continuous critical exchange on recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights.
Further building our impact, Strasbourg Observers has started to host on- and offline Symposia, publish overviews of communicated ECtHR cases (see below) and has recently kickstarted its very own Podcast.
In 2021, Strasbourg Observers became a joint project with the Centre for Government and Law at Hasselt University.
As of 2025, the Blog, retaining its main base at the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University, is run as an inter-university collaboration amongst the Dutch-language universities of Belgium. Associated research groups are the Centre for Government and Law at Hasselt University, the Leuven Centre for Public Law at KU Leuven, the Law and Development Research Group at the University of Antwerp and the Vakgroep Publiekrecht at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
The Ghent University Human Rights Centre recently started publishing overviews of cases communicated by the European Court of Human Rights. Every two weeks, this page is updated with the most recently communicated cases. This allows interested parties to stay informed about upcoming cases they might wish to intervene in. These overviews are available here.
We welcome submissions and proposals for Blogposts on a rolling basis (see “Contact“).
Strasbourg Observers is an academic blog that discusses recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights. The editorial team of Strasbourg Observers is based at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Centre for Government and Law of Hasselt University.
Strasbourg Observers would not be possible without the valued work of countless guest bloggers. Visit the “Contact” page on our website to find out how to become one!
