European Court of Human Rights Archives

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From Denial to Accountability

12.05.2025

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni Mariana Gkliati

A long-denied reality by the Greek authorities is now on court record. Through its judgement in A.R.E. v Greece the European Court of Human Rights (Court) has confirmed the longstanding...

Article

Will the Swiss Grandmas Travel the World?

12.05.2025

Liz Hicks Hannah Leoni Stahl Aylin Yildiz Noorda

Anticipation has run high for what some call the of the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling delivered on 9 April 2024. While it is too early to definitively assess the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling’s impact...

Interview

On European Human Rights, Frames, and Critique

25.04.2025

Esra Demir-Gürsel Jens T. Theilen Daniela Rau

Dear Esra, dear Jens, thank you for accepting the invitation to share insights into your research on the framing and critique of European Human Rights Law with us. You are...

Article

Democracy on Trial

13.03.2025

Toni Selkälä Shorena Nikoleishvili

Regular elections constitute a cornerstone of democratic societies. In most states, elections are timed, organised, and administered in accordance with detailed electoral legislation. The right to cast a vote and...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 4

Gender, Climate, and the Illusion of Neutrality

05.03.2025

Dilruba Begüm Kartepe Mariia Zheltukha

This blog post examines the stance of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’) in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland through a gender lens, questioning whether...

Media

Saving the Climate in Strasbourg? – A Critical Look at the European Court of Human Rights’ Climate Cases

07.07.2024

Marko Milanovic

On 9th April 2024, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued decisions in three significant climate change cases. In this edition of the Current Issues in...

Article

ECtHR Favours 1.5-Degree Limit

05.06.2024

Felix Ekardt

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled in Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland that the protection of life and health under Article 8 ECHR against climate...

Article

Racialised Climate Justice

01.06.2024

Jens T. Theilen

9 April 2024 was a big day for international lawyers. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered judgment in three major climate change cases. One of these much-anticipated decisions,...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Author’s Response to the Reviews

31.05.2024

Vladislava Stoyanova

I would like to thank Elena Abrusci, Maria Louiza Deftou, Vassilis Tzevelekos, Lea Raible, Mariana Ferolla Vallandro do Valle and Rick Lawson who contributed to the blog symposium by engaging...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Oasis or Mirage?

30.05.2024

Rick Lawson

Into the Desert Paradoxically, the longest chapter in Vladislava Stoyanova’s book on positive obligations is devoted to the desert: the grim and arid lands extra muros. Where States operate beyond...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Climate Change and Positive Obligations in the ECHR

29.05.2024

Lea Raible

Stoyanova’s book, Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries, rigorously analyses positive obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), proposing a characterisation...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

In Dialogue with Stoyanova

28.05.2024

Vassilis P. Tzevelekos

Vladislava Stoyanova’s recently published monograph on positive human rights obligations within the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) regime consolidates various earlier seminal papers of hers on the same topic...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Delineating the Boundaries of Substantive Positive Obligations

28.05.2024

Maria-Louiza Deftou

Given the duality of human rights law, encompassing not only the corpus of human rights proclaimed in treaties but also the necessary specification of the relative obligations of their holders,...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Positive Obligations, Deference and Subsidiarity

27.05.2024

Elena Abrusci

International human rights law and its enforcement systems rely on the collaboration of states to respect their obligations and protect rights. It follows that even when regional human rights courts...

Article

The A Sud v. Italy Case after the KlimaSeniorinnen Judgment

24.05.2024

Federica Cittadino

Just as climate litigation is on the rise globally, increasingly more climate cases are brought before Italian courts. On February 26, 2024, the Civil Tribunal of Rome has rendered its...

Bofaxe

UK-Rwanda Deal Pushed Through Parliament

24.05.2024

Jack Provan Nadine Grünhagen

On 25 April 2024, the long-awaited Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 (Safety of Rwanda Act) received royal assent in the United Kingdom (UK). This followed months of...

Article

Who Cares About Public Interest?

15.05.2024

Igor Popović

The preceding year presented formidable challenges for freedom of expression and affiliated freedoms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BaH): an attack on LGBT+ community members, the draft statute on online disinformation...

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Klimaklagen

06.05.2024

Joel Bella

„Klimaschutz jetzt Menschenrecht“. So formuliert es ein Kommentar in dem bekannten deutschen Rechtsmagazin LTO. Und das beschreibt tatsächlich ziemlich genau das, was der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) am 09....

Article

Whether “Absolute” Means Absolute

23.04.2024

Arnold Vardanyan

On 26 February 2024, the Armenian Cassation Court published a decision following its earlier requested advisory opinion from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the applicability of statutes...

Article

Resisting the Allure of Future Generations’ Rights

19.04.2024

Luísa Netto

On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered much-anticipated judgments in three emblematic climate change cases: Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland, Carême v. France,...

Article

Who’s Afraid of Human Rights in War? (Part II)

18.04.2024

Mischa Gureghian Hall

In Part I of this response, I addressed the background of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the fact pattern of Narayan and Others v. Azerbaijan before the European Court of Human...

Article

Is the Harmonisation of IHL and IHRL Eroding?

18.03.2024

Tabriz Musayev

Editor's note: a two-part rebuttal to this piece by Mischa Gureghian Hall has been published on Völkerrechtsblog (see Part I and Part II). On 19 December 2023, the European...

Article

Equality as Integral

08.11.2023

Vandita Khanna

Duarte Agostinho, the ‘biggest-yet climate case’ before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has, among other things, framed climate change as an issue of inequality....

Article

Why a Court Alone Won’t Bring Us to Heaven

12.10.2023

Julian A. Hettihewa

On 27 September 2023, the case of Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others (no. 39371/20) was heard by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human...

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Symposium
Progress and International Law: A Cursed Relationship?

Towards a Feminist Interpretation of the ECHR’s Provisions on Access to Abortion

21.09.2023

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni

While applications regarding the incompatibility of deadly restrictive abortion policies with the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) are piling up before the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘Court’),...

Symposium
Progress and International Law: A Cursed Relationship?

Border Dialectics: Progress, Regress, and Resistance

20.09.2023

Giulia Raimondo

Received knowledge about the protection of migrants in international law tells a story of progress. A story of expanded refugee definitions, complementary protection, and extraterritorial obligations. Yet a counternarrative has...

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Not You Again!

07.09.2023

Theresa Bosl

Mass surveillance has been a recurring issue before courts around the globe, including the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). In the last cases brought before the CJEU,...

Article

Protecting Human Rights During the Climate Crisis

04.09.2023

Pranav Ganesan Helen Keller

This blogpost was inspired by a question that arose in an international climate case concerning emissions reductions obligations under human rights law. During the oral proceedings of KlimaSeniorinnen and Others...

Article

Who Is Responsible for Ensuring Human Rights in Global Sport?

04.08.2023

Michele Krech

In Semenya v. Switzerland, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) has weighed in on the issue of sex testing in sport. The decision comes after a series...

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International Problems Require International Answers

12.07.2023

Joel Bella Julia Heuwing

This year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is expected to deal with several climate change cases, through which the complainants seek to hold their countries of origin responsible...

Article

Inhuman and Degrading ‘Hotspots’ at the EU Borders

27.04.2023

Kilian Schayani Max Maydell

On 4 April 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) published its judgment A.D. v. Greece, for the first time condemning the living conditions in the so-called ‘Hotspots’ on...

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An Unneighborly Gift in Times of Need

20.04.2023

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni

In February 2023, the news of devastating deadly earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria shook the globe. The horrifying effects of these earthquakes led to a death toll that has surpassed...

Article

A Court, Not a Policymaker

31.03.2023

Lorenz Wielenga

On Wednesday, under the eyes of great public interest, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) opened a chapter to what may become the ECtHR’s greatest...

Article

The Future of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Human Rights

02.03.2023

Petra Sussner

Over the last decades, the regulation of gender and sexuality has undergone major changes in Europe. From Athens to Reykjavik, same-sex unions are legal reality. States must no longer require...

Article

The Future of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Human Rights

09.02.2023

Jens T. Theilen

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has a long history of adjudicating cases concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. Many of those cases involved the controversial interpretive approach known...

Article

Die „Bundesnotbremse II“ aus dem Blickwinkel der EMRK

02.02.2023

Isabella Risini

Die bundesweiten Schulschließungen in Deutschland infolge der Corona-Pandemie im Jahr 2021, die Gegenstand des Beschlusses des Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 19. November 2021 waren, liegen nun dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR)...

Symposium
Racial Profiling in Germany

Racist Police Practices

15.12.2022

Lisa Washington

In 2012, Biplab Basu and his daughter rode a train from Prague to Berlin. The train had just passed the Czech Republic, when two German federal police officers got on...

Symposium
Racial Profiling in Germany

Race and Empire in International Law

14.12.2022

Anna Hankings-Evans

The prohibition of racial discrimination has played a marginal role within the global human rights agenda. This corresponds to the subordination and neglect of ‘race’ in how international legal scholars...

Symposium
Racial Profiling in Germany

Human Rights Standards for Accountability and Effective Remedies

13.12.2022

Elisabeth Kaneza

In Germany, for a long time, racial profiling was regarded as a problem that exists in other countries. However, in recent years more victims of racial discrimination have brought cases...

Article

Rewriting als Methode

14.10.2022

Petra Sussner

Es war zur Jahrtausendwende, als das Rewriting in der Luft lag. Und das tut es heute wieder. Rewriting steht hier für die Methode, Gerichtsentscheidungen aus spezifischen Perspektiven und Regeln neu...

Book Review

The Principle of Effectiveness

10.10.2022

Daniel Rietiker Sofie Steller

In his latest book, Georgios A. Serghides, Judge and Section Vice-President at the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter, the ‘Court’), delves into the interpretation and application of the European...

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Out of Sight, out of Mind?

27.06.2022

Jona Höni

On June 14th 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued an interim measure against the United Kingdom, effectively halting a deportation flight at the 11th hour that would...