Dr Peter Kempees has published the new book “Hard Power” and the European Convention on Human Rights with Brill Publishers. I had the pleasure of being on the reading committee of the dissertation of dr Kempees on which this book is based. It was successfully defended at Leiden University in 2019. Older readers may know Peter Kempees, working at the registry of the European Court, as the editor of the systematic guide to the case-law of the European Court, published in the 1990s and at the time one of the key works of reference. This is the abstract of his new monograph:
‘The European Convention on Human Rights is now crucial to decisions to be taken by the military and their political leaders in ‘hard power’ situations – that is, classical international and non-international armed conflict, belligerent occupation, peacekeeping and peace-enforcing and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations, but also hybrid warfare, cyber-attack and targeted assassination. Guidance is needed, therefore, on how Convention law relates to these decisions.
That guidance is precisely what this book aims to offer. It focuses primarily on States’ accountability under the Convention, but also shows that human rights law, used creatively, can actually help States achieve their objectives.’
