Full Professor of Human Rights in a Multidisciplinary Perspective at Utrecht University.
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On the Record
Since George Orwell wrote his famous novel on the dangers of an all-controlling Big Brother in the 1940s the possibilities to record human behavior have greatly increased. The challenges to the right to privacy are obvious, but audio or videotaping behavior can…
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Judgment on Suicide in the Army
On Tuesday 17 June the Court found a violation of the right to life in a case involving suicide: Abdullah Yilmaz v. Turkey. The case concerned a 20-year-old who committed suicide during the performance of his compulsory military service. The immediate trigger…
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Television judgment
Yesterday, the Court unanimously found a violation of Article 10 ECHR (freedom of expression) in an Armenian media case: Meltex Ltd & Mesrop Movsesyan v. Armenia. The case concerned the sevenfold refusal of the Armenian authorities to grant a broadcasting license to…
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Dealing with Conflicts of Rights
Dealing with conflicting fundamental rights is one of the great challenges of any constitutional court and the European Court is no exception. A recent paper offers an intriguing combination of the academic and the insider’s perspective. In ‘Rights in Conflict: the European…
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A People’s History of the ECHR
For many Strasbourg watchers a certain curiosity remains after reading new judgments: what happens subsequently? Of course, the formal answer can be found in the work of the Committee of Ministers which monitors state compliance with the Court’s case law. But beyond…
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More Judgments on Detention Conditions
Yesterday, the Court found a violation of Article 3 in the case of Kotsaftis v. Greece. Kotsaftis suffered of hepatitis B and complained that he had incurred the disease during detention. His medical condition was so bad that he needed to be…
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Human Rights During Armed Conflict
The manner of applying human rights to situations of armed conflict has been a topic of heated debate in academia and in courts in the last decade. A recent article in Global Jurist addresses the issue. Federico Sperotto’s Law in Times of…
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Hurrah!
Today this blog reached 1000 page views! I am very happy that news on the Court’s judgments, on recent academic articles and other ECHR-related topics have found such a large audience (from 44 different countries so far) in less than three weeks.…
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On Wheels Behind Bars
Yesterday, the Court held, in the case of Scoppola v. Italy, that Italy had violated Article 3 ECHR. The applicant, a man in a wheelchair who had no physical personal autonomy, was sentenced to life imprisonment after killing his wife and wounding…
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Hearings to be Watched
This month the Court will hold a number of notable hearings. Among them is the case of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church v. Poland, concerning uncertainty of ownership of a number of church buildings and the implications for the freedom of religion…