January 12, 2022
By Ash Stanley-Ryan International law walks a tightrope between the rights of sovereign States and the rights of those who comprise them. Tip too far to either side and the system breaks – sovereignty either becomes unbridled power, or becomes meaningless. This delicate balancing is most evident when sovereign power and human rights directly collide, […]
September 06, 2021
By Margarita S. Ilieva, a strategic equality/human rights litigator with extensive experience in negative stereotyping. The violent misogyny case of J.L. c. Italie (27.05.2021) is one of few in which the Court expressly addressed revictimisation (neglectful/actively injurious treatment of a survivor by those expected to address the original harm). Prior cases whereby this concept was […]
April 26, 2021
By Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard[*], Jessica Valentine (LL.M)[†] and Lisanne van Dijck[‡] ‘This is a sad case’ begins the joint partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion of Judge Spano and others in the case of X and others v. Bulgaria. The judgment, delivered by a Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) […]
April 12, 2019
By Corina Heri, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam Three years ago, on this blog, Lourdes Peroni wrote about the failings of the domestic response to the alleged rape of an 11-year-old girl in M.G.C. v. Romania. Today, the ECtHR is continuing to apply ‘coercive obligations’ regarding rape and sexual violence, as crystallized by […]
May 20, 2016
By Yaiza Janssens Not many ECtHR cases that focus on a possible obligation under Article 8 of the Convention to conduct a criminal investigation and even fewer cases where the facts fall exclusively concern minors. In A, B and C v. Latvia, a Chamber judgment issued on 31 March 2016, the applicants complained that the […]
April 20, 2016
Those who think stereotypical beliefs about rape are a thing of the past will probably be surprised to read the domestic reasoning in cases that have recently reached Strasbourg. Allusions to women’s “immoral” behavior in I.P. v. the Republic of Moldova and insinuations that women should have resisted “by scratching or biting” in Y. v. […]
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 […]
May 20, 2015
By Yaiza Janssens In the recent case of I.P. v. the Republic of Moldova, the European Court of Human Rights examined state responsibility to establish an effective legal and judicial framework with regard to rape under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. In this post, I show that the Court failed to acknowledge that […]