The newest issue (Vol 14, Issue 2, 2010) of the International Journal of Human Rights contains an article by Juliet Chevalier-Watts (University of Waikato, New Zealand), entitled ‘A rock and a hard place: has the European Court of Human Rights permitted discrepancies to evolve in their scrutiny of right to life cases?’. This is the abstract:
This article is concerned with the developing jurisprudence of the right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Right since the Murder on the Rock case. In particular, this article considers how the European Court of Human Rights scrutinises police lethal force cases in comparison with military lethal force case in light of the recent fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Underground by British police. The first part of the article considers the background to this shooting; the requirements of Article 2; and the seminal case of McCann and Others v United Kingdom, that instigated the development of Article 2 in this area of law. The second part of the article considers how those principles developed in the Murder on the Rock case have been applied and construed in subsequent military and police lethal force cases, and explores the rationalisation for any discrepancies in the approach of the Court.
The same issue also features an article by Klaus Brummer of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, entitled ‘Enhancing intergovernmentalism: the Council of Europe and human rights’:
International governmental organisations (IGOs) thoroughly scrutinise their member states’ domestic human rights policies. More often than not, though, the organisations’ decision-making bodies are unwilling to act on the information that their monitoring bodies generate. This paper discusses three options that might enhance intergovernmental human rights protection: the strengthening of institutions, the creation of new institutions, and the intensification of cooperation with other organisations. However, there are formidable obstacles to a proper implementation of any of those options. Therefore, human rights protection by IGOs will remain suboptimal. The Council of Europe – Europe’s human rights watchdog – serves as a case in point.
