July 03, 2020
By Dr Vladislava Stoyanova (Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Lund University) With S.M. v Croatia, issued on 25 June 2020, the Grand Chamber delivered its first judgment under Article 4 (the right not to be held in slavery or servitude or to be required to perform forced or compulsory labour) concerning inter-personal harm, i.e. circumstances […]
June 29, 2020
By Cedric Ryngaert and Kushtrim Istrefi On 26 May 2020, the European Court of Human Rights rendered a chamber judgment in Makuchyan and Minasyan v. Azerbaijan and Hungary. The case concerns a soldier from Azerbaijan, R.S., who killed an Armenian soldier and attempted to kill another one while on a NATO training in Budapest. R.S. […]
June 26, 2020
By Giulio Fedele (University of Rome “La Sapienza”, giulio.fedele@uniroma1.it) Hate-speech against sexual minorities has become a pressing issue for the ECHR. Online media and social platforms boosted the possibilities one has to express both personal opinions and hateful comments, thus making it harder for the Strasbourg Court to draw the line of the protection afforded […]
June 22, 2020
We are delighted that our call for papers has attracted a huge interest from all over the world and we would like to thank everyone who submitted an abstract. In view of the Corona crisis, we are moving the Conference to 24-26 November 2021. This will enable our participants to meet face to face which […]
June 16, 2020
By Dragoș Călin In the recent judgment in the case Kövesi v. Romania (application no. 3594/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) and Article 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights […]
June 11, 2020
By Alice Margaria (Research Fellow, Department of ‘Law & Anthropology’, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) Fathers who want to be or remain involved in their children’s lives have become frequent applicants before the ECtHR. Underlying many of their complaints are national measures reflecting a ‘conventional’ understanding of fatherhood, where paternal care is attached scant […]
June 05, 2020
Little over a year ago, I wrote a blog post discussing the Advisory Opinion No. 1 issued under Protocol No. 16, with the title “The mountain gave birth to a mouse”. Last week, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights give birth to Advisory Opinion No. 2 “concerning the use of the […]
May 28, 2020
By Katre Luhamaa and Jenny Krutzinna, researchers at the Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism (University of Bergen) Introduction In February this year (2020), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, Court) delivered two further judgments relating to the Norwegian child protection system (Hernehult v. Norway and Pedersen et al. v. Norway). In both […]
May 20, 2020
By Jurij Toplak The ECHR’s Article 8 guarantees a right to have data related to criminal procedures reviewed and, after some time and in most cases, removed. In this blog post, I will first summarise the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or “the Court”) on the retention, review, and removal of […]
May 18, 2020
By Maïté De Rue Because they are often very populated places with poor living conditions, prisons present a high risk of contamination in a period of pandemic such as COVID-19. A number of countries have taken measures to decrease pressure on penitentiary institutions by releasing prisoners or decreasing the number of new arrivals. This approach […]
May 15, 2020
Guest Blogger: Nina de Puy Kamp, Paralegal at Leigh Day Solicitors, London UK* Hungary’s Media Act 2010 (the Act) garnered much criticism for its chilling effects on free speech (UN, OSCE, EU, HRW). The Act establishes a media regulator (appointed by the ruling party) to inter alia prohibit and impose fines for ‘imbalanced coverage’ and […]
May 07, 2020
By Moritz Baumgärtel M.N. and others v. Belgium confronted the ECtHR with the question whether Article 3 of the ECHR places an obligation on State Parties to provide short-term humanitarian visas in their foreign embassies and consulates to potential asylum seekers. The Court, assembled in its Grand Chamber, found the case to be outside the […]
May 06, 2020
By Francesco Luigi Gatta, Research Fellow, UCLouvain, member of EDEM (Equipe droits européens et migrations) On 24 March 2020, the ECtHR delivered its judgment in Asady and Others v. Slovakia, which concerned the expulsion to Ukraine of a group of Afghan nationals. With a controversial ruling (passed by a slight majority of 4 votes to […]
May 05, 2020
By Ilia Siatitsa and Ioannis Kouvakas Yesterday, we argued that blanket mobile phone location tracking measures that aim at containing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be regarded as strictly necessary due to their indiscriminate nature and the existence of less intrusive alternatives with potentially similar effectiveness. In this second blog post, we reflect […]
May 04, 2020
By Ilia Siatitsa and Ioannis Kouvakas In his recent interview on The Intercept, Edward Snowden questioned whether the measures implemented by authorities amid the pandemic are necessary to safeguard people, as well as, whether the pandemic is seen by governments as just another opportunity to make us acquiesce to mass surveillance. In a scramble to […]
April 27, 2020
By Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 26 March 2020, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found that a refusal by the Ukrainian authorities to give a non-governmental organisation (NGO) access to information about the education and work history of top politicians as contained in their official CVs, filed as candidates for Parliament, […]
April 23, 2020
By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour Have the Strasbourg Observers really been running only for ten years? On receiving the invitation to celebrate this anniversary, my mind travelled back to the time before your emergence, and I felt rather isolated in my critical approach to the study of the European Court of Human Rights. Long before I joined […]
April 22, 2020
Lourdes Peroni, Lecturer in Human Rights, Sheffield Hallam University, UK I am thrilled to be part of this Blog Symposium to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Strasbourg Observers with some reflections on the memorable Grand Chamber judgment in Paposhvili v. Belgium. In December 2016, amidst a growing number of dissenting voices pushing for change […]
April 20, 2020
By Linda Hamid, Research Fellow at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies – Institute for International Law, KU Leuven On 4 December 2019, during a research stay in the Republic of Moldova, I travelled to the village of Doroțcaia, where I visited the ‘Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt’ lyceum and met with the principal, […]
April 10, 2020
Dirk Voorhoof (Human Rights Centre, Ghent University and Legal Human Academy) On 18 June 2015, Strasbourg Observers published our blog post ‘Delfi AS v. Estonia: Grand Chamber confirms liability of online news portal for offensive comments posted by its readers’. It situated and commented the Grand Chamber judgment of 16 June 2015 in the first case […]