Friday 18 October 2019

René Cassin Moot Court Competition 2020

The oldest Moot Court competition on the ECHR is the French-language Concours René Cassin, held every year in Strasbourg. The case for the upcoming year's competition is now online here. The finals are often judged by moot courts including current judges from the Court, which make it an exciting competition. It is organised and run under the sposnorship of the university of Strasbourg, the Fondation René Cassin-Institut International des droits de l’Homme, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe. The 2020 edition will be held from 25 to 27 March and revolves around human rights and algorithms. For the Concours' Linkedin page including a video impression of the Competition, see here.

Tuesday 8 October 2019

New Judge Elected in Respect of Portugal

Last week, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) elected Ana Maria Guerra Martins as the new judge in respect of Portugal. By a large majority of the votes cast she was elected for a nine year term. Currently she is an associate professor specialising in human rights at the Law School of Lisbon University and a member of the European Commission's European Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination. Between 2007 and 2016 she also served as a judge on the Constitutional Court of Portugal. 

The new judge will succeed Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque on 1 April 2020, the judge well-known for his many separate, dissenting and concurring opinions that have been a feast for external Strasbourg watchers and case-law analysts.

Thursday 3 October 2019

September Issue of NQHR Online

The September 2019 Issue (Vol. 37, No. 3) of our Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights is now online. It includes three articles directly related to the ECHR:

* Eva Brems, 'Positive subsidiarity and its implications for the margin of appreciation doctrine': 

'The article presents an argument in favour of a richer theory of subsidiarity in the European Court of Human Rights context. In particular, the proposal is to include what is called a ‘positive’ dimension in subsidiarity thinking. That is to say, the article argues that the scholarly and political debate on ECHR subsidiarity has focused mostly on ECHR restraint, associated with a wide margin of appreciation for the States Parties. There is however a complementary dimension in the subsidiarity layout, which concerns the responsibility of national authorities to offer first-line protection of Convention rights. The article examines the role the European Court of Human Rights can play in facilitating that first-line responsibility. The article explores what this means for the margin of appreciation of national authorities.'

* Lize R. Glas, 'The European Court of Human Rights supervising the execution of its judgments':

'The European Convention on Human Rights (‘Convention’) provides that the Committee of Ministers shall supervise the execution of the European Court of Human Rights’ (‘Court’) judgments. This article aims to address the question whether, despite what the Convention provides, the Court is involved in supervising the execution of its judgments. Additionally, this article addresses the question what the Court does when it is engaged in this exercise. In order to answer these two questions, four aspects of the Court's practice that are linked to the execution process are examined. These are the four aspects of interest: just-satisfaction judgments under Article 41 ECHR, follow-up cases concerning individual measures, follow-up cases concerning general measures and the pilot-judgment procedure. The analysis of these aspects will lead to the conclusion that the Court indeed engages in supervising execution, but also that this does not mean that the Court is taking on the Committee's task and that supervising execution has not become in any way part of the Court's day-to-day work.'

* Francesca Camilleri, 'Compulsory vaccinations for children: Balancing the competing human rights at stake':

'Vaccination for children has been a controversial topic for decades and lately it has regained particular importance. We have seen an increase in vaccine hesitancy and decrease in vaccine confidence throughout Europe, particularly due to vaccine-safety concerns by parents. Consequently, vaccination rates for children have dropped and this in turn has led to an increased spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, such as measles. As a reaction to this phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, several European countries have introduced, while others are in the process of introducing, laws making vaccinations compulsory for children for a number of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases. The introduction of such laws affects and gives rise to several competing interests of the parents, the child and the State. Against this background, this article seeks to determine how the European Court of Human Rights should balance the competing human rights that are at stake in cases concerning compulsory vaccinations for children.'