April 07, 2021
By Charly Derave, PhD Researcher at the Perelman Centre for legal philosophy (ULB), and Hania Ouhnaoui, coordinator of the Equality Law Clinic (ULB). On 24 February 2021, the Equality Law Clinic (ELC) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles[1] and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) of Ghent University[2] submitted a third-party intervention to the European Court […]
November 27, 2020
Tobias Thienel, associated fellow at the Walther Schücking Institute of International Law at the University of Kiel, Germany, and lawyer with Weissleder Ewer* A classic staple of the cop show genre has the detective ‘roughing up’ a stubborn defendant in order to produce a confession. This somewhat hackneyed story line never had much to do […]
November 18, 2020
By Natasa Mavronicola (University of Birmingham) and Laurens Lavrysen (Human Rights Centre, Ghent University) On 8 October 2020, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment in the case of Aghdgomelashvili and Japaridze v Georgia. The case concerns a police raid on the office of an LGBT organization in Tblisi. During this raid, police […]
September 21, 2020
By Vandita Khanna and Natasa Mavronicola In Dikaiou and Others v Greece, the First Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was called upon to determine, inter alia, whether the separate detention of six female prisoners living with HIV/AIDS amounted to ‘ghettoisation and stigmatisation’ in violation of the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14 […]
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 […]
September 03, 2019
By Nicole Bürli, Human Rights Advisor of the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT)[1] On 25 June 2019, coincidently the eve of the international day in support of victims of torture, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights limited the scope of Article 3 ECHR. In the case of Nicolae Virgiliu Tănase v. […]
July 30, 2019
By Corina Heri, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam ‘When he kills you, come and see us’, police reportedly told the applicant in Volodina v. Russia before proceeding to ignore her allegations of domestic violence. On 9 July, the Third Section found that the respondent State had violated its positive obligations under Article 3 […]
June 05, 2018
By Christina Kosin, Ph.D. Candidate and Academic Assistant at the German Police University On 31 May 2018 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in the cases of Al Nashiri v. Romania and Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania that the Contracting States Romania and Lithuania violated multiple provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights […]
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 […]
March 28, 2018
By Corina Heri, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam On 15 March 2018, the ECtHR’s Grand Chamber issued its first judgment of the year. The case in question is Naït-Liman v. Switzerland, and it concerns the right of a refugee to seize a Swiss court with a civil claim for damages resulting from torture […]
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 […]
April 20, 2015
This guest post was written by Christina Kosin, LL.M. (Edinburgh) and Ph.D. student and academic assistant within the Network of Excellence for the Law of Civil Security in Europe at the German Police University in Münster, Germany. See also the post she wrote for EU Law Analysis. The main argument of this comment is that […]
September 10, 2014
This guest post was written by Amrit Singh. Amrit Singh is Senior Legal Officer for National Security and Counterterrorism at the Open Society Justice Initiative and acted as counsel in al Nashiri v. Poland. In the woods, about 160 kilometres north of Warsaw, in a village called Stare Kiejkuty, sits a Polish intelligence base that […]
December 12, 2013
Recently, the European Court of Human Rights failed to condemn Belgium for two incidents in which police officers slapped suspects of foreign origin – including a minor – in the face during police questioning in relation to trivial affairs. The Court specifically ruled that a one-time slap in the face did not, under the specific […]
August 22, 2013
I am very pleased to announce the publication of my article ‘Conflicts between Absolute Rights: A Reply to Steven Greer’ in the latest issue of Human Rights Law Review. The article can be found here. This is the abstract: Can absolute rights conflict? Is it permissible to torture a person to save others from torture? […]
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 […]
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 […]
September 24, 2010
Does exposure to smoking by other people violate human rights? This is a question that merits serious consideration. One context in which it has been raised is smoking in the presence of children (see the campaign of the Flemish Anti-Cancer League on this subject, with a link to my presentation on the subject). This raises […]
August 19, 2010
Summertime in rainy Belgium! Relaxed after a sunny family holiday abroad, with no lectures or meetings on the agenda, I finally find some time to write a blog entry. Only to realize that it is August, and that the judges at the European Court of Human Rights are also entitled to their holidays. This means: […]
August 06, 2010
In Davydov and others v. Ukraine, the European Court of Human Rights was confronted with particularly disturbing facts. The case concerned ill-treatment committed by special forces on prisoners during training exercises. Not during an actual emergency situation of riot in the prison. No, during exercises. Twice. The prisoners were not warned about the exercises. They […]