Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Asylum Seekers

  • Guest Blogger

On a positive note: B.A.C. v. Greece

November 21, 2016

By Ellen Desmet, assistant professor of migration law at Ghent University. On 13 October 2016, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found in B.A.C. v. Greece that the Greek state’s omission to decide on an asylum application during more than twelve years violated Article 8 as well as Article 13 in conjunction with Article […]

  • Guest Blogger

Khan v. Germany, Episode II: The Empire strikes out

October 31, 2016

Guest post by Benoit Dhondt, Belgian lawyer specialized in migration and refugee law. As a teaching assistant, he is also connected to the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University, more specifically its Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic. Several practitioners were disappointed with the road the ECtHR traveled in Khan v. Germany last year. With […]

  • Guest Blogger

The potential of a vulnerability-based approach: some additional reflections following O.M. v Hungary

October 25, 2016

Guest post by Denise Venturi, PhD Student in International Law, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy) and KU Leuven (Belgium) As has recently been noted in this blog, the case of O.M. v Hungary adds another tile to the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) mosaic on vulnerability. The present blog post seeks to start from these […]

  • Guest Blogger

G.J. v. Spain and Access to Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking

September 01, 2016

Guest post by Ruth M. Mestre i Mestre, Human Rights Institute, University of Valencia. The G.J. v. Spain Decision (App. no. 59172/12) shows many of the problems victims of human trafficking encounter to access justice. It is, sadly, one of those cases where formalities swallow justice, since the outcome could have been totally different had […]

  • Salvo Nicolosi

F.G. v Sweden: fine-tuning the risk assessment in asylum claims

April 04, 2016

By Salvo Nicolosi In the Grand Chamber’s ruling of last 23 March 2016, the Strasbourg judges came back on appeal to the controversial case of F.G. v. Sweden, which on 16 January 2014 had divided the Chamber’s judges as to the assessment of the risk of persecution for an Iranian national who had applied for […]

  • Guest Blogger

Migrants’ avoidance of the European Court of Human Rights concerns us all

February 10, 2016

By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Professor of Law and Anthropology at the Brighton Business School, University of Brighton (*) This post has been re-published on When Humans Become Migrants Blog. Every year towards the end of January, the President of the European Court of Human Rights holds a press conference that takes stock of the previous year. […]

  • Salvo Nicolosi

V.M. and Others v. Belgium: The asylum law discourse reloaded

July 21, 2015

By Salvo Nicolosi Last 7 July 2015, the Second Section of the Strasbourg Court ruled in V.M. and Others v. Belgium, concerning the violation of Articles 3 and 13 ECHR owing to the reception conditions of asylum seekers. The case must be placed within the settled case law on the protection of asylum seekers under […]

  • Guest Blogger

A.S. v. Switzerland: missed opportunity to explain different degrees of vulnerability in asylum cases

July 16, 2015

By Salvo Nicolosi and Ruth Delbaere (Ghent University) In the recent judgment of last 30 June 2015 in A.S. v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights offers another occasion to reflect on the issue of vulnerability in asylum cases. The ruling represents another episode of the ongoing saga concerning the Dublin System to determine […]

  • Guest Blogger

S.J. v. Belgium: missed opportunity to fairly protect seriously ill migrants facing expulsion

April 30, 2015

This guest post was written by Sarah Ganty, Ph.D. student at the Institute for European Studies and at the Faculty of Law (Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy) of the ULB within the Research project ARC “Sous le signe du mérite et de la conformité culturelle, les nouvelles politiques d’intégration des immigrés en Europe”. See also […]

  • Guest Blogger

Another episode in the Strasbourg saga on the Dublin System to determine the State Responsible for Asylum Applications

February 20, 2015

This guest post was written by Salvo Nicolosi, Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University’s Human Rights Centre. The recent decision in A.M.E. v. The Netherlands, issued by the European Court of Human Rights last 13 January 2015 and notified in writing on 5 February 2015, offers another occasion to assess through a human rights perspective the […]

  • Guest Blogger

Tarakhel v. Switzerland: Another Step in a Quiet (R)evolution?

December 01, 2014

This guest post was written by Nesa Zimmermann, Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva, Switzerland (*) The Court’s recent ruling in Tarakhel v. Switzerland became famous almost before it was delivered. The case has received strong media attention, and some claimed the judgment signified “the end of the Dublin system”. However, […]

  • Maris Burbergs

Financial considerations in an expulsion case?

May 08, 2014

In Palanci v. Switzerland – an expulsion case – the Court held against the applicant his unsuccessful business efforts and the time that authorities needed to process his asylum and residence permit applications.

  • Guest Blogger

The application of the European Convention on Human Rights to the case of Leonarda Dibrani

December 18, 2013

This guest post was written by Georgios Milios* On October 9 2013, Leonarda Dibrani, a 15-years old Roma girl, was arrested by the French police in front of her teachers and classmates and deported to Kosovo along with her parents and five siblings. Initially, it was argued that the family had left Kosovo some years ago seeking […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Forthcoming Publication on Vulnerable Groups in the Court’s Case Law

March 18, 2013

This post was written by Alexandra Timmer and Lourdes Peroni Alexandra and I are happy to announce the forthcoming publication of our joint Article “Vulnerable Groups: The Promise of an Emerging Concept in European Human Rights Convention Law.” The piece will be published in the International Journal of Constitutional Law – I•CON. In this Article, […]

  • Guest Blogger

Non-nationals, living conditions and disability: Situating S.H.H. v. United Kingdom within Strasbourg’s Article 3 case-law

February 19, 2013

This guest post was written by Elaine Webster. Elaine holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and is currently a lecturer and director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law at the University of Strathclyde.  In S.H.H. v. United Kingdom a chamber of the ECtHR, by four votes to three, found […]

  • Guest Blogger

Françoise Tulkens, indefatigable defender of migrants’ human rights

August 28, 2012

The Strasbourg Observers are delighted to post this tribute to Judge Tulkens by Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, University of Sussex. Françoise Tulkens arrived at Strasbourg because she wanted to make a contribution to the development of European human rights law. She had no prior judicial experience but brought to her new office fine legal skills and […]

  • Eva Brems

Thank you, Justice Tulkens: A comment on the dissent in N v UK

August 14, 2012

According to HUDOC, Judge Tulkens sat on the panel of 1843 ECtHR judgments, amongst which 217 Grand Chamber judgments. The same source lists as her oldest judgment the article 6 case of Van Pelt v. France on 23 May 2000. As HUDOC – however wonderful – has its imperfections, we cannot know  for certain whether […]

  • Guest Blogger

Hirsi (part II): Another side to the judgment

March 02, 2012

This is the second post written by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour* on the case Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy. As I said yesterday, Hirsi is a fantastic judgment. It is ground-breaking not only for declaring interception-at-sea as currently practiced illegal on a number of grounds but also for potentially lightening the burden of proof which falls […]

  • Guest Blogger

Interception-at-sea: Illegal as currently practiced – Hirsi and Others v. Italy

March 01, 2012

This post is written by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour. She is Professor of Law and Anthropology at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention and currently preparing a monograph provisionally entitled Migrant First, Human When? Testing Human Rights in the European and Inter-American Courts. Europe […]

  • Laurens Lavrysen

Less stringent measures and migration detention: overruling Saadi v. UK?

January 25, 2012

The recent cases of Yoh-Ekale Mwanje v. Belgium and Popov v. France illustrate how a ‘less stringent measures test’ is entering the Court’s reasoning under Art. 5 § 1 ECHR in migration detention cases. The Court appears to be slowly moving away from its deferential approach in Saadi v. The United Kingdom. This might result […]

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