Full Professor of Human Rights in a Multidisciplinary Perspective at Utrecht University.
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The Pilot has Landed
This week the Court concluded its first full cycle in a so-called pilot case procedure. It struck out 176 pending applications in the “Bug River” cases. These cases all concerned claims of applicants who disagreed with a Polish scheme set up to…
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Article on Rights of ‘Travelling Peoples’
The most recent issue of the Human Rights Law Review (volume 8, no. 3, 2008) contains an article on one of my areas of particular interest: Ralph Sandland, Developing a Jurisprudence of Difference: The Protection of the Human Rights of Travelling Peoples…
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Judgment on Apology of Terrorism
Cartoons are, as we have seen in recent years, not always completely innocuous. Today the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in a case focusing on the controversy about a cartoon depicting the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center…
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Interpretation of International Humanitarian Law
Still catching up on recent Court judgments, allow me to highlight a recent Grand Chamber decision of the Court. In Korbely v. Hungary the Court found a violation of Article 7 ECHR (no punishment without law) by eleven votes to six. The…
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Election of Judges
Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, re-elected the Luxemburg judge at the Court, Dean Spielmann, for a new term. He was elected out of a list of three candidates by 86 out of 126 votes cast. His new term…
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The Perils of an Interview
Being interviewed in a newspaper can have serious consequences. Such was the experience of Nadji Chalabi in whose case the Court recently issued its judgment. Chalabi was a former member of the Board of Directors of the Grand Mosque of the French…
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10,000th Court Judgment
This month the European Court of Human Rights reached a remarkable milestone. On 18 September it delivered its 10,000th judgment, both a testimony to the Court’s very high efficiency as well as a sad reminder of the enormous case load – and…
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Court’s Summer Break
After issuing its last judgments yesterday, the Court has gone on its summer break. This blog will do the same and will return at the end of September (a bit later than the Court itself). For some summer reading, please consult (and…
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Recognised at Long Last
In one of its last judgments before the summer break, the Court found violations on several counts in a case lodged by the Austrian Religionsgemeinschaft der Zeugen Jehovas (Austrian Jehovah’s Witnesses). The religious community applied for legal recognition as a religious society…
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Turkish AK Party Fined But Not Dissolved
Yesterday, the Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party will not be banned. It was a Phyrric victory for the party, however. A majority of the judges voted to close down the party, but the majority…