On 30 October from 13:00-14:30 CET, the Dublin European Law Institute (DELI) of the Dublin City University (DCI) is organizing an online event entitled ‘The Age of Backlash: the European Convention on Human Rights and the New Political Reality‘. This event will explore the political pressure and challenges the system of the European Convention on Human Rights is facing. Speakers will include Senator Adam Bodnar (former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Republic of Poland), Andrew Forde (Dublin City University), Mikael Madsen (University of Copenhagen), Alice Donald (Middlesex University), Colin Harvey (Queen’s University Belfast) and Veronika Fikfak (University College London/University of Copenhagen). This event will also mark the launch of the AGORA Group, a new pan-European platform dedicated to an open, evidence-based dialogue on issues concerning the ECHR.
Here is a description of the event:
‘Despite the unity around values expressed by Council of Europe member states at the 2023 Reykjavík Summit – following Russia’s expulsion from the Council of Europe a year earlier for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has come under sustained political pressure. It has been accused of judicial overreach, normative arrogance, and even blamed for domestic policy failings.
Backlash against the Convention system is not new, but recent developments appear to be qualitatively different. A group of nine states recently issued a wide-ranging open letter calling for the Court to afford greater latitude to national authorities in the field of migration, particularly in cases concerning the expulsion of “criminal foreign nationals.” Concrete proposals to reform the ECHR are now in motion. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, leaving the ECHR has become a mainstream policy position of two major parties—with apparently little concern for its implications, especially in Northern Ireland, where the Good Friday Agreement hinges on the Convention.
Are these positions and criticisms reasonable and legitimate, or is there a growing political tendency to scapegoat the ECHR? What trends can be observed, and how should the system engage or respond? These questions will be explored by a panel of leading experts.
This event will also mark the official launch of the AGORA Group, an independent, pan-European platform committed to open dialogue and balanced, evidence-based debate on key issues concerning the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which now brings together more than 500 members.’
You can register here for the online event.
