Prospect of Compensation through Universal Civil Jurisdiction in case of Serious Human Rights Violations: Focusing on the Naït-Liman v. Switzerland Ruling of the European Court of Human Rights(ECtHR)

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-101
Author(s):  
Esther SONG
Author(s):  
Siuzanna Mnatsakanian

Conceptual approaches to defining the nature and the scope of interim measures implementation as an instrument of human rights protection at international and national level are analyzed. The widespread use of interim measures as international standard of urgent respond to alleged violations of human rights has not led to the implementation of the legal institute concerned at the national level. Accordingly, this analysis aimed at defining the grounds of interim measures as human rights protection instrument application to be used by the state as an immediate response to human rights violations and possible violations. European Court of Human Rights has a great practice of interim measures granting. Interim measures are granted by the Court only in clearly defined conditions, namely where there is a risk that serious violations of the Convention might occur. A high proportion of requests for interim measures are inappropriate and are therefore refused. Besides, interim measures are applied upon request of the applicant claiming about alleged violations of his or her human rights. At the national level interim measures should/may be granted upon request of the applicant or by the duty-bearer’s initiative to prevent possible human rights violations. The grounds of interim measures granting should also be defined – the best international practice should be used taking into account the Ukrainian context. Another core issue analyzed is defining duty-bearers – subjects enforced to grant interim to prevent abuse in the sphere concerned. It is obvious that court shall be the only authority to resolve the substantive case of alleged human rights violation. However, public and local authorities shall be enabled to grant interim measures to prevent the possible violations. With this, the scope and the sphere of its application at the national level shall be broader in comparison with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Dmitry Kuznetsov

When establishing human rights violations committed by the state, should it be violation of internationally protected rights or constitutional rights, the violator is obliged to compensate for the harm caused. In the meantime, neither international sources, nor national legal acts and case law answer the question whether the obligation to compensate is exhausted by the compensation awarded in accordance with a decision of an international judicial body or such a payment has punitive nature, and the state keeps the obligation to compensate the damage within the frameworks of national proceedings. Following the first part of opening remarks the second part of the article studies universal international law approach towards the state obligation to compensate for human rights violations, it reviews positions of the International Court of Justice, the model established in international customary law of international responsibility. The third part discusses the compensation mechanism of the European Court of Human Rights and a number of cases where the Russian Federation was the respondent state. The forth part considers national regulation of the Council of Europe states and case law thereof. The author argues that the established international case law in respect of awarding compensations for human rights violations is too restrictive – it does not take into account a complex nature of this phenomenon which includes both correction of the individual applicant situation (restitution of the pre-existed situation) and prevention of similar situations in the future. It is concluded that awarding the compensation by an international body primarily constitutes a measure of international responsibility whereas consideration by a national court is a more effective means of restitution of the applicants rights and that the national court shall not deny consideration of applicants claims due to the fact that they have already been awarded compensation by the international judicial body including the European Court of Human Rights.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-110
Author(s):  
Lourdes Peroni

This article launches a frame to investigate the inequalities underlying the human rights violations migrant women may experience. Drawing on intersectionality theory and on Ratna Kapur’s concept of ‘normative boundaries of belonging’, the article puts forward the notion of ‘intersecting borders of inequality’. The notion interrogates three types of borders that may construe migrant women as outsiders or lesser members in society: formal, normative and practical borders. The article demonstrates that scrutinising the ways in which these borders intersect illuminates some of the structures disadvantaging migrant women and invites imagining wider responses to tackle these disadvantages. To illustrate these arguments, the article uses examples of the European Court of Human Rights’ case law.


2020 ◽  
pp. 096466392094636
Author(s):  
Raoul Wieland ◽  
Edward J Alessi

Evidence suggests that Europe’s Dublin Regulation is increasing the precarity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) asylum applicants. Dublin allocates responsibility for examining asylum claims between EU Member States. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) guides the obligations of States under Dublin. Increasingly, the ECtHR draws on the concept of vulnerability to frame the experiences of asylum seekers. Vulnerability purportedly functions for the ECtHR as a lens through which the harm experienced by asylum applicants is magnified, enabling it to better recognize human rights violations. Nevertheless, the ECtHR’s vulnerability lens may be distorted by hetero- and cisgender normativity. We explore some implications of the ECtHR’s assumptions for how the vulnerabilities of LGBTQ asylum seekers in Europe under Dublin register with the ECtHR. We suggest that the combined frameworks of intersectional invisibility and layers of vulnerability can improve the ECtHR’s capacity to understand how LGBTQ asylum applicants may be particularly vulnerable under Dublin.


Author(s):  
Nussberger Angelika

This chapter evaluates the efficacy of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On the one hand, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) system has had an amazing success in building up a constitutional order in Europe defining common values. Significant changes in the laws of all Member States were made; individual human rights violations were effectively remedied. On the other hand, Europe is far from being a human rights paradise. Even an average observer of daily news cannot avoid having the impression that in some States even the most basic human rights are not effectively guaranteed and that some so-called ‘democracies’ hide their disdain for individual rights behind lip services and promises to abide by the Convention, but in reality use membership in the Council of Europe only as a tool in foreign relations. The chapter then identifies the roles played by the Committee of Ministers, NGOs, and the Court in executing judgments on human rights violations. Article 46 para 1 ECHR obliges the parties to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties. In line with the general rules of State responsibility, the Court interprets the obligations arising out of Convention violations as threefold: ‘to cease the breach, to make reparation for it and ensure non-repetition of similar violations in the future’.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi

The right to a fair trial is guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In an effort to protect this right, the European Court of Human Rights has, inter alia, set criteria to determine whether or not the admission of a confession in domestic courts violated the right to a fair trial. This jurisprudence also shows that the Court has established two broad guidelines that govern the admissibility of confessions obtained through human rights violations. The first guideline is that confessions obtained in violation of absolute rights and in particular in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights must be excluded, because their admission will always render the trial unfair. The second guideline is that a confession obtained in violation of a non-absolute right may be admitted without violating the right to a fair trial if the State had a compelling reason or reasons to restrict the right in question. The Court has also dealt with the issue of the admissibility of real evidence obtained through human rights violations. The purpose of this article is to highlight the Court’s jurisprudence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-369
Author(s):  
Veronika Fikfak

AbstractThis article studies how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) adjusts damages for human rights violations. The article empirically analyses 13 years of ECtHR’s case law in relation to Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (torture, inhuman and degrading treatment), and 5 (arbitrary detention) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, the Convention). The goal is to understand whether the statements made by the Court about the aims pursued through just satisfaction are confirmed in practice. Through an empirical quantitative study relating to non-pecuniary damages, the article analyses the practice of the Court in awarding non-pecuniary damages for human rights violations and compares it to the competing visions of the ECtHR’s function. In particular, I am interested in determining whether just satisfaction is aimed at redressing the suffering of the victim, her circumstances and vulnerability, or whether the focus is more on the respondent state, its conduct and its past human rights record. The answers to these questions will contribute to the debate whether the ECtHR’s role is one of delivering ‘individual justice’ or whether the Court is – as an international court enforcing an international treaty – focused on the ‘state’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Gornik

During the process of gaining national independence the Slovenian government unlawfully erased 25,671 individuals, mainly citizens of other republics of the former Yugoslavia from the Slovenian Register of Permanent Residents. In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Kurić and others vs. Republic of Slovenia held that there had been a violation of the 8th, 13th and 14th Articles of the European Convention on Human rights. Following this judgement the Slovenian government adopted a compensation scheme for the Erased introducing the criteria determining conditions for their redress. The article reflects on the political and legal construction of victimhood and reveals the notions of political loyalty, legal conformity and territorial attachment as one of the most decisive elements of victimhood. It shows that the subjectivity of victims in the case of the Erased is not defined within the human rights discourse but is grounded in nationalist terms.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document