Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Prohibition of Inhuman Treatment

  • Margarita S. Ilieva

Oganezova v. Armenia: Purposive homophobia in a deprived legal environment

August 12, 2022

By Margarita S. Ilieva. The author is an equality litigator and analyst focused on hate and stereotyping victims (see, for Strasbourg Observers, J.L. v. Italy: A survivor of trivictimisation and The Rights of Others in Cases of Othering: Anti-victim Bias in ECHR Case Law?). She litigated Oganezova as an EHRAC lawyer. On IDAHO 2022, the Court delivered […]

  • Guest Blogger

Kargakis v. Greece: Protection in Substance for Detainees with Disabilities but a Web of Missed Opportunities

March 12, 2021

By Andrea Broderick (Assistant Professor of International and European Law, Maastricht University, The Netherlands) and Delia Ferri (Professor of Law, Maynooth University, Ireland) Delia Ferri and Andrea Broderick have collaborated on several recent publications, including the first textbook on International and European Disability Law and Policy: Texts, Cases and Materials (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and […]

  • Guest Blogger

Positive Obligations in Crisis

April 07, 2020

Dr Natasa Mavronicola is Reader in Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. She has written extensively on the right to life and the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. She is co-editor of Lavrysen & Mavronicola (eds), Coercive Human Rights: Positive Duties to Mobilise […]

  • Guest Blogger

Abdyusheva and Others v. Russia: a Sadly Missed Opportunity

January 08, 2020

By Valérie Junod and Olivier Simon On November 26. 2019, the ECtHR issued a 6 to 1 judgment finding that Russia had not breached the right of the complainants when it denied them access to methadone and buprenorphine (these two medicines are hereafter abbreviated to M/B) for treating their duly diagnosed opioid dependence syndrome (ODS). […]

  • Guest Blogger

Inhumane and degrading treatment in the workplace: a first for the European Court of Human Rights?

October 05, 2018

This guest post was written by Cathérine Van de Graaf, a PhD student at Ghent University. In its recent judgment of Hovhannisyan v. Armenia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the State authorities failed to conduct a proper investigation into a civil servant’s allegations of ill-treatment by her superiors during an argument over […]

  • Guest Blogger

IRELAND V THE UK AND THE HOODED MEN: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

April 25, 2018

Written by Dr Alan Greene, Assistant Professor at Durham Law School* In Ireland v The United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR; the Court) in Chamber formation refused to revise its 1978 judgment regarding whether British security forces’ use of the so-called ‘five techniques’ of interrogation during the conflict in Northern Ireland amounted to […]

  • Guest Blogger

Zherdev v. Ukraine: Article 3 of the ECHR and Children’s Rights at the Stage of Police Interrogation

June 29, 2017

By Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard, Professor of Children’s Rights / UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights, Leiden Law School, Leiden University, The Netherlands[1] The Zherdev v. Ukraine judgement of 27 April 2017 by the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: the Court) further augments the Court’s line of recognising the vulnerable position of children in police […]

  • Strasbourg Observers

One-way ticket to Sudan: standard-setting, yet disconnection between reasoning and outcome in N.A. v. Switzerland?

June 26, 2017

By Ellen Desmet, assistant professor of migration law at Ghent University On 30 May 2017, the European Court of Human Rights decided two cases regarding the expulsion of rejected asylum seekers by Switzerland to Sudan. In A.I. v. Switzerland, the Court held unanimously that there would be a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ECHR […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Talpis v. Italy: Elements to Show An Article 14 Violation in Domestic Violence Cases

April 19, 2017

What are the elements necessary to support a finding of discrimination in domestic violence cases? In the recent case of Talpis v. Italy, two judges voted against an Article 14 violation. The dissenting opinions offer an opportunity to reflect on this and other broader questions that may be relevant for future cases. The questions flow […]

  • Guest Blogger

V.M. and others v. Belgium: The tragic story of yet another “disappeared case”

January 18, 2017

Guest post by Moritz Baumgärtel, lecturer and researcher at the Department of European and International Public Law at Tilburg University. Moritz recently defended his PhD at the Université libre de Bruxelles. His project was a part of the IAP research network “The Global Challenge of Human Rights Integration: Towards a Users’ Perspective”. On 17 November […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Paposhvili v. Belgium: Memorable Grand Chamber Judgment Reshapes Article 3 Case Law on Expulsion of Seriously Ill Persons

December 15, 2016

In what is possibly one of the most important judgments of 2016, Paposhvili v. Belgium, the Grand Chamber has memorably reshaped its Article 3 case law on the expulsion of seriously ill migrants. In a unanimous judgment, the Court leaves behind the restrictive application of the high Article 3 threshold set in N. v. the […]

  • Corina Heri

A Casualty of Formalism: The Application of the Six-Month Rule in Kamenica and Others v. Serbia

November 16, 2016

By Corina Heri, PhD candidate at the University of Zürich / Visiting Scholar at Ghent University On 27 October 2016, the Court published the Third Section’s decision in Kamenica and Others v. Serbia. That case concerns the alleged ill-treatment of 67 persons who fled Bosnia and Herzegovina during the conflict that broke out there in […]

  • Guest Blogger

Grand Chamber clarifies principles for life sentence of prisoner with mental disability

May 02, 2016

This guest post was written by Nicole Bürli, PhD, Human Rights Advisor of the World Organisation against Torture. On 26 April 2016, the Grand Chamber of the Court delivered its judgment in the case of Murray v. the Netherlands. Overturning the Chamber judgment, the Grand Chamber rightly found the irreducibility of a life sentence of […]

  • Guest Blogger

Back on track! Court acknowledges gendered nature of domestic violence in M.G. v. Turkey

April 14, 2016

This guest post was written by Fleur van Leeuwen (*) Around a month ago, the Court ruled in Civek v. Turkey that it was not necessary to examine the applicant’s complaint of discrimination in a domestic violence case that ended in death. This was disheartening, especially because in recent domestic violence judgments the Court has […]

  • Eva Brems

Sakir v Greece: Racist violence against an undocumented migrant

April 06, 2016

By Eva Brems In a recent case, the Court found a violation of article 3 ECHR on account of the defective investigation into a serious incident of racist violence that occurred in Athens in 2009. In addition, the detention conditions imposed upon the victim (sic!) also violated article 3. The judgment explicitly recognizes the structural […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Grand Chamber Hearing in Paposhvili v. Belgium: The End of N. v. the UK?

September 24, 2015

Few judgments have sparked more criticism than N. v. the United Kingdom. The high Article 3 threshold set in the case of a seriously ill woman expelled to Uganda where she died shortly after her return has been criticized both inside and outside the Court. Following what some considered a missed opportunity in S.J. v. […]

  • 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 […]

  • Corina Heri

The Court’s Approach in Y. v. Slovenia, Annotated

June 09, 2015

By Corina Heri This guest post was written by Corina Heri, Ph.D. researcher at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, and visiting researcher at the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University. On the 28th of May, the Fifth Section of the Strasbourg Court issued its judgment in Y. v. Slovenia. The judgment in the Y. case ties in […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Bias and Violence in Identoba and Karaahmed: The Difference Some Differences Make?

June 02, 2015

By Lourdes Peroni  What role do discriminatory insults play when the Court considers a certain instance of ill treatment in the light of Article 3? The answer seems to depend on which case one looks at. The role is that of “an aggravating factor,” if one looks at the recent judgment in Identoba and Others […]

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