Monday 10 August 2009

Switzerland will host future of ECHR Conference

Switzerland has agreed to host the high-level conference on the future of the European Court of Human Rights. It will be held in the city of Interlaken on 18 and 19 February 2010 during Switzerland's chairmanship of the Council of Europe. The main aim of the conference is to find ways to guarantee the effectiveness of the Court in the future in the light of the heavy case-load. It will look beyongd the current reforms of Protocols 14 and 14-bis.

The President of the Court has now issued a memorandum to all state parties on that conference, the full text of which can be found here. It includes such creative ideas as class action, the creation of a kind of Court of First Instance (in analogy to the European Court of Justice), but also very practical ideas such as increasing the dissemination of the Court's case law (to which this blog hopes to make its small contribution!).