Month: October 2008
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Hurray for the Court!
Tomorrow the new European Court of Human Rights will exist exactly ten years, as I reported earlier. In spite of all the current problems, that is a reason to celebrate! As president Costa remarked yesterday: Much has been achieved over the last ten years, which
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Non-Refoulement under ECHR
My former colleague of Leiden University, Maarten den Heijer (see his earlier post on this blog here), has just published an article in the European Journal of Migration Law, entitled ‘Whose Rights and Which Rights? The Continuing Story of Non-Refoulement under the European Convention on
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New Book on ECHR
Helen Keller and Alec Stone Sweet, of the universities of Zürich and Yale respectively, have just published a new book on the ECHR: A Europe of Rights: The Impact of the ECHR on National Legal Systems (Oxford University Press 2008). It seems to be a
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Another Victory for the Freedom of Assembly
Last Thursday the Court found a violation of the right to the freedom of assembly (Article 11 ECHR) in the case of Sergey Kuznetsov v. Russia. The case concerned a small-scale peaceful demonstration in 2003 in front of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court building. The demonstrators
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Moratorium on Extraditions to Turkmenistan
Today the Court established a de facto moratorium on extraditions from ECHR state parties to Turkmenistan. In its judgment in the case of Soldatenko v. Ukraine, the Court found that the extradition of the applicant from Ukraine to his own country would violate Article 3
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New Method of Compensation under Article 41
Yesterday, the Court issued its judgment on just satisfaction in the case of Guiso-Gallisay v. Italy. The case concerned a rather straightforward situation of indirect expropriation. The Court seized the opportunity to introduce a new and more equitable method of awarding compensation under Article 41
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Social and Economic Rights and the ECHR
Last week Jean-Paul Costa, the President of the Court, gave the opening speech (in French) at a seminar on economic, social and cultural rights organised by the French Human Rights Commission. It is well-known that the European Convention does not contain many socio-economic rights as
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Privacy Rights of Former Torture Suspects
Last week the Court issued its judgments in the two connected cases of Kyriakides v. Cyprus and Taliadorou and Stylianou v. Cyprus. The three applicants in the cases were retired police officers. In 1993 the three men were accused of torturing suspects (Taliadorou and Stylianou)
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Suicide in Prison Judgment
Today, the Court issued its judgment in the case of Renolde v. France. The facts of the case are sad: in July 2000 Joselito Renolde committed suicide in prison. He had been arrested and put into detention a few months earlier pending his trial for
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Two New Academic Articles on the ECHR
As I reported yesterday, the Court looked at its achievements and challenges at a seminar this week. For those interested in reading an external critique of the current problems facing the Court, the following recent article from the Human Rights Quarterly is recommended: Steven Greer,