By Lize R. Glas, assistant professor of European law, Radboud University
For over seven years, the Committee of Ministers (Committee) has had at its disposal the ‘nuclear option’ of launching infringement proceedings against a state that refuses to execute a Strasbourg judgment. On 5 December 2017, it decided to go nuclear for the first time, in the case of Mammadov v. Azerbaijan. Continue reading
By Eline Kindt, PhD researcher Human Rights Centre – Ghent University
The recent Burmych and others v. Ukraine judgment of the ECtHR of 12 October 2017 has thoroughly shifted the institutional balance in the Council of Europe between the Court and the Committee of Ministers. The Court decided to pull itself away from a situation of mass non-execution by Ukraine of both its own national judgments, as well as the Court’s previous pilot judgment of Yuriy Nikolayevich Ivanov v. Ukraine. The Court decided that these cases would be struck out of its list and become the responsibility of the Committee of Ministers, thus leaving thousands of victims without the possibility to bring their case before the Court. Continue reading
By Dr Alice Donald, Senior Lecturer and Anne-Katrin Speck, Research Associate School of Law, Middlesex University, London
How far can – and should – the European Court of Human Rights recommend, or even compel, states to take certain measures after the finding of a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights? This question is increasingly debated as the Court, driven by states’ failure to implement judgments, has moved away from its formerly strictly limited, declaratory approach to remedial measures by sometimes indicating specific non-monetary individual measures or general measures.
This debate has come into sharp focus with the judgment in Moreira Ferreira (No. 2) v. Portugal, issued by the Grand Chamber on 11 July 2017, Continue reading
