September 05, 2011
After a long time of neglect, there is an increasing awareness and recognition of the human rights of older persons within the international human rights community. Several stakeholders have issued a call for a ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons’. In a recent article in the Human Rights Law Review, entitled ‘The Human […]
August 03, 2011
Dear Readers, The Court is going on recess in August and so are we until the end of the month. We wish you all a nice summer and look forward to being back soon with more comments on the European Court’s latest developments. The Strasbourg Observers
July 27, 2011
An interaction can be observed regarding the recognition of the right to conscientious objection in three international human rights systems– the UN, European and Inter-American.
July 20, 2011
In the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Bayatyan v. Armenia the Court recognized a right to conscientious objection under Article 9. The first step in doing so was to correct a mistake started by the European Commission of Human Rights (Commission) regarding the interpretation of Article 9 in conjunction with Article 4.
July 14, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. More information on Rónán can be found on the website of the Center for Journalism Studies of Ghent University, here. Following the Mosley v. the United Kingdom judgment delivered by the Fourth Section of the European […]
July 07, 2011
Immigration was a challenge in the past, is still a challenge now and will probably remain a challenge in the future for policy makers as well as for judges. Especially when it comes to public services for individuals staying irregularly in a country, this issue becomes more difficult. Can the regular or irregular stay of […]
July 05, 2011
Last week, the European Court ruled against France in a case concerning a tax demand claimed from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The amount: over 57.5 million Euros. In Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah c. France, the Court focuses on the impact of the taxation on the association’s main source of funding – and on its subsequent […]
June 22, 2011
This guest post was written by Ingrid Leijten who works as a Ph.D. fellow and teaching assistant at the Leiden University Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law. Her main research interest lies in the development of the ECHR and the practice of the ECtHR in relation to the Member States’ policymaking. […]
June 20, 2011
In the case of Khodorkovskiy v. Russia the Court reaffirmed that placing a person in a cage during a trial if the person is not predisposed to violence or there are no serious security threats, is degrading and violates Article 3. The Court noted that the practice of placing a criminal defendant in a sort […]
June 08, 2011
Together with Lourdes and Stijn, I’ve just attended the Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Konstantin Markin v. Russia. We’ve blogged about this case here and here. Just to refresh your memory: the case concerns a military serviceman, Konstantin Markin, who was divorced from his wife and who had custody of their three young […]
June 02, 2011
By Laurens Lavrysen* As Alexandra correctly noted in her post, R.R. v. Poland is a very interesting judgment. The focus of this post will lie on the general health rights implications of this judgment, which exceed the specific context of reproductive health. In the case of Tysiąc v. Poland (ECtHR 20 March 2007) the Court […]
May 31, 2011
The Court has released an important judgment in the area of reproductive health, R.R. v. Poland. It is also a very interesting judgment, as it raises a complex set of issues connected to different fields of law. Our team had a lively debate about this case yesterday. It became clear that there are various ways […]
May 19, 2011
The Council of Europe recently released a report on diversity in Europe, entitled “Living together: Combining diversity and freedom in 21st-century Europe”, drawn up by the ‘Group of Eminent Persons of the Council of Europe’. The report aims to negotiate “the challenges arising from the resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe”. It “assesses the […]
May 11, 2011
Guest post by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, PhD candidate at Ghent University. For more information on Rónán, find him here. This week the Fourth Section of the European Court delivered its much anticipated judgment in Mosley v. the United Kingdom, which unanimously held that the absence of a prior-notification requirement on newspapers to give advance notice […]
May 09, 2011
It has been claimed[1] and it is also my understanding that human rights protect important aspects of a human life. The views on what are the important aspects may vary. The drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put in their views; inspired by the rights in the Declaration, the European Convention was composed, […]
May 04, 2011
In its decisions in the cases of Holub v. the Czech Republic and Bratři Zátkové, a.s. v. the Czech Republic the Court has unanimously declared the applications inadmissible. The Court used the new admissibility criterion to determine that.
May 02, 2011
As part of our research project I have written a paper on the conflict between freedom of expression and the right to reputation in the defamation case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The paper, based on an analysis of over 120 judgments and entitled “Freedom of Expression and the Right to Reputation: Human […]
April 28, 2011
Today, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives voted a ‘burqa ban’. It did the same thing a year ago, but the unexpected fall of the government prevented the law from entering into force then, as the bill had been evoked by the Senate. This time, it is for real. The text introduces in the criminal code […]
April 26, 2011
Dear blog visitor, This month, it is a year ago that the blog gave birth to its first posts. 102 posts later, here we are! When we started this blog, we could only dream of the current results. 32,407 views in 2010 and already 22,504 for the first part of 2011. While in 2010 we […]
April 19, 2011
The famous American feminist legal theorist Catherine MacKinnon argued that pornography is an act of subordination. In Only Words, she notes: “Social inequality is substantially created and enforced – that is, done – through words and images. . . Elevation and denigration are all accomplished through meaningful symbols and communicative acts in which saying it […]