The special issue was guest edited by my great colleagues professors Janneke Gerards, Mads Andenas and myself (Antoine Buyse). It is based on the insights and discussions of an authors workshop we organised at Utrecht University, in a collaboration between the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice, the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and Oslo University.
This is what the special issue is about:
A relative gap in ECHR scholarship is the interface of substantive matters and rather more procedural and institutional issues. Similarly, little attention has been paid to the interconnectedness between this interface and the wider debates about the nature of the Court as mainly or even only serving individual or, by contrast, constitutional justice. To our minds, it is important to connect the dots to see the overall picture of the developments in the Convention system.
To solve this gap in scholarship, this special issue focuses on a number of seemingly purely procedural issues that are closely intertwined with the substance of the Convention rights and the wider debates surrounding the Court’s functions. Our point of departure is that admissibility issues at the Court – metaphorically the ‘heads’ – and remedies – the ‘tails’ – mutually influence and shape not just the Court’s judgment of the merits – the ‘body’ of cases in Strasbourg – but also each other. Thus, in a variation on the old Egyptian and Greek legend of Ouroboros [see picture], the serpent eating its own tail and thus forming a cycle, we contend that the heads and tails of procedures before the Court are more closely connected than may seem at first sight. The way these connections are given shape and are perceived are central to this special issue.
These are the contents of the special issue:
* Janneke Gerards, Antoine Buyse and Mads Andenas, '‘Heads and Tails’: Admissibility and Remedies at the European Court of Human Rights' (introductory article to the special issue)
* Marco Fisicaro, 'Novel Approaches to Interim Protection Against Systemic Threats to the Rule of Law'
* Mathieu Leloup, 'The Question of Non-Independent Apex Courts as Effective Remedies to be Exhausted'
* Lorenzo Acconciamessa, 'Two Birds With One Stone? Governments’ Unilateral Declarations Before the ECtHR and the Reopening of Domestic Proceedings'
* Anne Bombay, 'The Court’s Correcting Mechanism: ‘General Measures’ as a Judicial Remedy to Address Legislative Inaction?'
* Joseph Finnerty, 'How Should the European Court of Human Rights Remedy Violations of Article 18 echr? The Case for Remedial Realignment'
*Corina Heri, 'Too Big to Remedy?: What Climate Cases Tell Us About the Remedial Role of Human Rights'
Both our introductory article and several of the other articles are open access. Many thanks to the journal and all participating authors as well as the journal's editors!
