Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Council of Europe

  • Anca Ailincai

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is at it again. On the non-ratification of the credentials of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary delegation

March 08, 2024

by Anca Ailincai On 24th January 2024, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) resolved not to ratify the credentials of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary delegation. Consequently, the Azerbaijani delegation has been suspended from participating in PACE until further notice. The decision was based on substantive grounds, including the use of military force in Nagorno-Karabakh, […]

  • Dmitry Kurnosov

No easy way out: the Strasbourg Court and legacy Russian cases

March 24, 2023

Dmitry Kurnosov Russia’s expulsion from the Council of Europe (‘CoE’) and, consequently, from the European Convention system has left almost 17 thousand cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’). That number will rise further as the Court has declared that it will accept applications concerning acts and omissions under Russian […]

  • Dmitry Kurnosov

Russia without Strasbourg and Strasbourg without Russia: A Preliminary Outlook

September 20, 2022

by Dmitry Kurnosov On September 16, 2022 Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This event is bound to have serious repercussions both for Russia and for the Strasbourg institutions. In this contribution, I chart some of the potential implications both for Russian domestic law and for the […]

  • Aurélie Van Baelen

Interim measures by the European Court of Human Rights in the Ukrainian conflict: United against the Russian aggression

March 22, 2022

By Aurélie Van Baelen On the early morning of 24 February 2022, when Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine, brutally invading sovereign territory, Europe entered a new era. After weeks of build-up tensions alongside the Russian-Ukrainian border, and the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, the Russian President dared to do what many feared, but hoped he would […]

  • Philip Leach

A Time of Reckoning? Russia and the Council of Europe

March 17, 2022

By Philip Leach [i] The brutal, unprovoked and illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started on 24 February 2022, has resulted in the swift utilisation of the machinery of international law. Ukraine itself instigated proceedings at the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. On 28 February, Karim Khan QC, the […]

  • Guest Blogger

Council of Europe at 72: Defusing the Defence Clause, Engaging the Acquis

June 15, 2021

This post was written by Dr Andrew Forde Winston Churchill caused quite a stir in 1950 when he used the platform of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) then Consultative Assembly (now Parliamentary Assembly) to call for the creation of a European Army. The Committee of Ministers (CM) politely but firmly rebuked the Assembly’s proposal on […]

  • Guest Blogger

Russian Roulette? Selection of the Judicial Candidates to the European Court from Russia

December 07, 2020

By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou and Gennady Esakov On 23 November 2020, the Russian Ministry of Justice announced the long list of candidates for the position of the judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) elected on behalf of Russia. The new Russian judge will replace judge Dmitry Dedov whose term will expire on the […]

  • Guest Blogger

A Bumpy Road to Strasbourg: Ups and Downs of the Ukrainian National Selection Process

July 25, 2019

By Dr. Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) I have already written two blog posts on the issue of election of judges of the European Court of Human Rights in Ukraine here and here. To sum up, the election of the new Ukrainian judge meant to take place in December 2018, but the Ukrainian authorities have […]

  • Guest Blogger

Russia left, threatened and won: Its return to the Assembly without sanctions

July 02, 2019

By Lize R. Glas, Assistant Professor of European law, Radboud University, the Netherlands The background story: The Assembly takes action As has been recounted on this blog and on other blogs already (see here and here as well), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Assembly) and Russia have been in a row ever […]

  • Guest Blogger

Election of the ECtHR Judge in Ukraine: from bad to worse

April 29, 2019

By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) As I have predicted in my previous blog post on this issue, the campaign for election of a judge in Ukraine has already proved to be a good case study illustrating the challenges that the Council of Europe institutions have to confront. These challenges now mainly result from poor […]

  • Guest Blogger

Election of Judges of the European Court of Human Rights: Ukraine, the Beginning

April 09, 2019

By Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool) Election of judges is crucially important for the legitimacy, reputation and authoritativeness of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Court needs leading academics and practitioners not only to come up with well-drafted and reasoned judgments but also to ensure that these judgments are then embedded into the […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Assembly’s appeasement towards Russia

September 27, 2018

By Lize R. Glas, assistant professor of European Law, Radboud University Slightly less than a year ago, I wrote a blog titled ‘The Assembly’s row with Russia and its repercussions for the Convention system’ on Strasbourg Observers. In that blog, I described that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Assembly) decided, in April 2014, to […]

  • Guest Blogger

Implementation of ECtHR judgments – What do the latest statistics tell us?

July 27, 2018

By Lucy Moxham, Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law In April 2018, the Committee of Ministers (the regional body responsible for supervising the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights) published its 11th Annual Report. The Committee’s Annual Report 2017 is available in full here. […]

  • Guest Blogger

The Assembly’s row with Russia and its repercussions for the Convention system

October 30, 2017

By Lize R. Glas, assistant professor of European Law, Radboud University In early 2014, Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The annexation has had grave humanitarian consequences and has set in motion a chain of events that is likely to affect the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) system. The most direct effect is […]