New ECHR Readings

Please find a number of new ECHR readings from journals and blogs below: 

* Vassilis P. Tzevelekos, 'The Al-Dulimi Case before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights: Business as usual? Test of Equivalent Protection, (Constitutional) Hierarchy and Systemic Integration', Questions of International Law, no. 38 (2017).

* Onder Bakircioglu and Brice Dickson, 'The European Convention in Conflicted Societies: The Experience of Northern Ireland and Turkey', International and Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 66, issue 2 (2017).

The newest volume of the Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law (2016) includes:

* Veronika Szeghalmi, 'Private Messages at Work – Strasbourg Court of Human Right’s Judgement in Bărbulescu v. Romania Case'. 

* Zoltán Tallódi, The Question of Prison Overcrowding as Reflected in the Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights''.

* János Tamás Papp, 'Liability for Third-Party Comments before the European Court of Human Rights – Comparing the Estonian Delfi and the Hungarian Index-MTE Decisions'.

And over on EJILTalk! the following recent postsa relate to the ECHR and the Court's Judgments:

* Alice Donald, ‘Tackling Non-Implementation in the Strasbourg System: The Art of the Possible?’.

* Vladislava Stoyanova, ‘Irregular Migrants and the Prohibition of Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour & Human Trafficking under Article 4 of the ECHR’.

* Marko Milanovic, ‘Strasbourg Judgment on the Beslan Hostage Crisis’. (on the same judgment, see laso Ed Bates' piece here).

Book on ECHR History

Marco Duranti, a historian based at the University of Sydney, has written an important new study about the origins of the European Convention of Human Rights. The book, published by Oxford University Press, is entitled 'The Conservative Human Rights Revolution -European Identity, Transnational Politics, and the Origins of the European Convention'. Based on extensive archival research, it proposes that - contrary to the image, in the eyes of many, of the Court in the past decades as a progressive developer of human rights - the original Convention negotiations were dominated by political conservatives, who saw the Strasbourg system as a safeguard for stability and containment rather than as a tool for change. This is the abstract:

'The Conservative Human Rights Revolution radically reinterprets the origins of the European human rights system, arguing that its conservative inventors envisioned the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) not only as an instrument to contain communism and fascism in continental Europe, but also to allow them to pursue a controversial political agenda at home and abroad. Just as the Supreme Court of the United States had sought to overturn Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a European Court of Human Rights was meant to constrain the ability of democratically elected governments to implement left-wing policies that conservatives believed violated their basic liberties, above all in Britain and France.

Human rights were also evoked in the service of reviving a romantic Christian vision of European identity, one that contrasted sharply with the modernizing projects of technocrats such as Jean Monnet. Rather than follow the model of the United Nations, conservatives such as Winston Churchill grounded their appeals for new human rights safeguards in an older understanding of European civilization. All told, these efforts served as a basis for reconciliation between Germany and the rest of Europe, while justifying the exclusion of communists and colonized peoples from the ambit of European human rights law.

Marco Duranti illuminates the history of internationalism and international law — from the peace conferences and world's fairs of the early twentieth century to the grand pan-European congresses of the postwar period — and elucidates Churchill's Europeanism, as well as his critical contribution to the genesis of the ECHR. Drawing on previously unpublished material from twenty archives in six countries, The Conservative Human Rights Revolution revisits the ethical foundations of European integration after WWII and offers a new perspective on the crisis in which the European Union finds itself today.'

Event on Implementation of ECtHR Judgments in the UK

On 15 May, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and Leicester Law School are organizing an event in London, entitled 'Implementation of the European Court of Human Rights: Opportunities and Challenges for he Rule of Law'. The event will focus on the United Kingdom's implementation record and more broadly on the impact of Strasbourg judgments in the UK. According to the organizers, the speakers will "consider the UK government's recent report 'Responding to Human Rights Judgments' which outlines its position on the implementation of the Court's judgments and responds to recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its 2015 scrutiny report 'Human Rights Judgments'. We will also hear a UK government perspective "from the inside" on the Committee of Ministers and its work supervising the execution of judgments. Speakers will then consider the wider picture of implementation across the member states and will reflect on the process for the execution of judgments and the role of the Committee of Ministers in this regard."

The event will be held at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in the early evening (at 17h30). Speakers will include Ed Bates, Nuala Mole and Philip Leach. For more information, see here.

Book on Procedural Review in European Fundamental Rights Cases

My colleague, SIM fellow and Utrecht University, Professor Janneke Gerards and Eva Brems of Ghent University have published a co-edited volume entitled 'Procedural Review in European Fundamental Rights Cases' with Cambridge University Press. With a wide range of chapters, it unites and compares the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights with those of other bodies. This is the abstract: 

'Traditionally, courts adjudicate fundamental rights cases by applying substantive tests of reasonableness or proportionality. Increasingly, however, European courts are also expressly taking account of the quality of the procedure that has led up to a fundamental rights interference. Yet this procedural review is far from uncontroversial. There still is a lack of clarity as to what 'procedural review' really means, what its potential for judicial decision-making is, how it relates and should relate to substantive review, and what its limitations are. Featuring contributions from experts in the field, this book is the first in-depth study into procedural review, considering the theoretical and conceptual issues at play, as well as the applicability of procedural review in different legal systems. It will therefore be of great importance to scholars and practitioners interested in fundamental rights adjudication in Europe, judicial reasoning and procedural justice'

Congratulations, Janneke and Eva!