In their analyses of specific cases involving armed conflict, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have acted as monitoring bodies for international humanitarian law (IHL) by factoring that body of law into their interpretation of human rights and State obligations set out in the European and American Conventions on Human Rights. In this article, the author argues that, in such cases, the two courts also acted as monitoring bodies for the rules of IHL designed to protect the dead and missing in both international and non-international armed conflicts. This monitoring function is apparent in the two courts’ judgments, which uphold the obligations of States to search for and identify the dead and missing in armed conflicts, to bury the remains of the dead and to investigate unlawful deaths and cases of forcible disappearance. The author concludes that not only has IHL bolstered the interpretation of the European and American Conventions on Human Rights, but that those two instruments and their interpretation have expanded the content and scope of the rules of IHL that protect the dead and missing in armed conflict.

The article looks at two electoral cases from the European Court of Human Rights that raise long-disputed doctrinal issues. Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary deals with the preferential representation of national minorities in parliament, while Zsófia Vámos v. Hungary concerns the rights of Hungarians living beyond the borders to vote in general elections. The author argues that the Court would need to critically examine the social and political system when deciding on electoral rules in order not to miss the forest for the trees, i.e., the way authoritarian regimes manipulate elections. If this is not done, even if decisions condemn Hungary, they may have a legitimising function for the regime. Using a feminist approach that introduces critical perspectives by rewriting problematic court decisions, the article will show how these cases should have been decided and argued in light of the real facts and political context. The article highlights the future potential external constraints of an authoritarian regime and empowers the supporters of constitutional democracy in Hungary.

The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based surveillance technologies such as facial recognition for national and public security purposes in the area of law enforcement raises serious concerns regarding the potential risks of abuse and arbitrariness it might entail, in the absence of adequate safeguards. At an international level, the impact of biometric identification systems on the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms has been consistently emphasised by international organisations, human rights monitoring mechanisms and the civil society, particularly with regards to the risk of mass surveillance possibly resulting in the infringement upon the right of privacy and freedom of assembly. This contribution will assess the international human rights and standards applicable to the use of these technologies for national security purposes especially in the context of peaceful protest by assessing the position of the European Court of Human Rights in Glukhin v Russia (11519/20) and recent regulatory attempts.

The ECtHR’s landmark judgment in the case Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland contains novel findings on procedural and substantive aspects of human rights protection in the climate change context. To reconcile effective protection of Convention rights with the exclusion of actiones populares, the Court set a high threshold for the individual applicants’ victim status while applying mostly formal criteria to the locus standi of the applicant association. On this count, only the association’s application was admissible. On the merits, the Court found violations of Articles 8 and 6(1) ECHR because Switzerland failed to comply with its positive obligation to protect individuals from the adverse effects of climate change and its courts did not engage seriously with the applicant association’s action. This case note takes a closer look at the ECtHR’s interpretation of standing for individuals and associations and discusses its (non-)alignment with previous case law. In particular, it reflects on the Court’s implicit understanding of the concept of victim in KlimaSeniorinnen and explores whether allowing representative standing is justified based on the Court’s existing case law. The case note concludes with an outlook on the enforcement of collective human rights issues through associations.

The European Court of Human Rights has long been cast as a defender of democracy in Europe. Yet, this idea has not always been at the core of the Court’s perception in the literature or indeed aligned with its jurisprudence which are often viewed in more Dworkinian terms. We suggest that there are good reasons, however, to take this idea more seriously in line with some of the early discussions on the function of the Convention. We argue that a good way to flesh out this idea is by drawing on the recent discussion on comparative representation reinforcement, sometimes labelled comparative political process theory, which builds on earlier work by US constitutional theorist John Hart Ely. Such an – expanded and updated – Elyian approach, we believe, has much to offer not just for domestic constitutional courts around the globe, but also for a supranational human rights court such as the ECtHR. We spell out what this might mean for the Court’s jurisprudence with reference to a few key areas of jurisprudence and the protection of minority rights in particular and sketch some implications for when to exercise restraint and when to intervene in a robust manner.

The EU Return Directive demands that immigrant detention be as short as possible, but, by logical implication, this also means that detention can be as long as necessary. What concerns the maximum length of detention, the Return Directive is remarkably generous: Immigrants can be detained for a period of up to eighteen months—a deprivation of liberty that is otherwise justified only as punishment for serious crimes. The practice of such long-term detention, now burgeoning, is highly questionable for moral, practical, and—our focus—legal reasons.

The European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) provides the relevant yardstick. While discussions on the legality of immigrant detention have focused on requirements of necessity, we shift attention towards the surprisingly absent question of maximum duration. Our analysis delves into the drafting context of the ECHR to reveal that it only authorizes the pre-removal detention of immigrants for markedly short periods. Picking up the interpretative canon of the regime, we note that meanings can of course change, but we argue that it is a legal mistake to consider that long-term detention is now sanctioned by the Convention.

Insights from Social Network Analysis reveal that the structure of the social network surrounding international courts is important for these courts’ ability to secure compliance with their judgments and by this to initiate social change. International courts like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) invest growing resources in shaping their networks, recognising that these networks are necessary tools that can help them to influence society. This paper will focus on the ways social network analysis can facilitate a better understanding of the ECtHR. The paper explains how certain characteristics of the network surrounding the ECtHR determine the ultimate social impact of the court.

The question of when and how a European consensus or trend contributes to shaping rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols is controversial. The European Court of Human Rights quite often performs an analysis of the laws and practices of the Council of Europe’s Member States or of relevant international material. However, the cases where rights have actually been shaped by a European consensus or trend are quite rare. In the last twenty-five years, some 27 out of 424 judgments on the merits of the Grand Chamber of the Court established a consensus or trend having a “shaping impact” on these rights. Further, only one advisory opinion based on Protocol No. 16 contained comparative law material having such an influence. This Article assesses the intensity of the impact of a consensus or a trend analysis on a judgment’s or an advisory opinion’s ratio decidendi, shows what shaping a right actually means, and suggests that cases that are more prone to a potentially persuasive consensus or trend analysis will typically deal with matters of political or general policy, sensitive moral or ethical issues, or changes in the case law.

This paper analyses the growing litigation before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by conservative European Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) who exploit legal opportunities and other advocacy tactics. These actors oppose the liberal insistence on permissive individual freedom, minority rights and mandatory vaccination. Instead, they promote the sanctity of life, traditional values and harsh terrorism penalties. In this study we show that conservative legal mobilisation is not only related to litigation but also covers the execution of certain ECtHR judgments and the nomination of some European judges. We analyse their tactics using legal and sociolegal methodology (interviews, analysis of legal documents and jurisprudence and network analysis) to characterise their influence on the European human rights system and the reactions of the Council of Europe. We reflect on the moral values claimed by conservative NGOs and their liberal counterparts by analysing how powerful private actors, driven by material and moral interests, take creative initiatives that shape or reshape case law and its politicisation through alliances with so-called ‘illiberal’ and ‘populist’ states.