Dear readers, as another Covid-19 year slowly grinds to a halt, this is the last post of 2020, as this blog will take a Winter break.
For the European Court of Human Rights this was another challenging year, with what we could call the start of a substantive Covid-19 case-law line, relating to such issues as freedom of movement and mandatory vaccination. No doubt, there will be more to come. And the general human rights situation within the ECHR's geographical reach remains worrying, with new judgments finding violations of Article 18 ECHR for example and a continuing series of cases about (the lack of) judicial independence. Enough reasons for this blog to continue following Strasbourg developments in the year ahead.
It was also the year in which the architect of the Court's current, iconic building passed away: Sir Richard Rogers. And also, to end with a comic note, the year in which Pastafarianism, the movement venerating the Flying Spaghetti Monster, was not recognised as a religion under Article 9 ECHR by the Court.
We wish all our readers a good holiday season and a healthy 2022!
Antoine Buyse and Kushtrim Istrefi, co-editors of the ECHR Blog