Manual on ECHR and the Environment

The Council of Europe has just published the second edition of its ''Manual on Human Rights and the Environment'', both in English and French. The book covers how both the European Court (the largest part of the publication) and the European Committee of Social Rights have dealt with environmental issues. This is the abstract:

Human rights and the environment have become increasingly interconnected. This updated manual seeks to contribute to a better understanding of this relationship by taking into account the new pertinent case law of the European Court of Human Rights. While the European Convention on Human Rights does not guarantee a specific right to a healthy and sound environment, the general standards deriving from it may nonetheless also apply to environmental matters. The European Court of Human Rights regularly examines complaints in which individuals argue that a breach of their Convention rights is the result of adverse environmental factors. 

This manual also takes account of the relevant decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights which has interpreted the right to protection of health under the European Social Charter as including a right to a healthy environment.

Examples of good national practices have been compiled on the basis of the contributions of several member states and included in an appendix to the manual.

The aim is to present the emerging principles on environmental protection in a systematic and accessible way. 

European Parliamentarians Welcome Resuming of EU - Council of Europe Talks

The joint informal body of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament (of the EU) hase welcomed the Committee of Ministers' decision to resume talk on EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. In a joint press release, which is aimed at keeping the pressure on swift conclusion of the talks high, the following is stated:

A joint informal body of MEPs and Council of Europe parliamentarians has welcomed the prospect of talks resuming on EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).


Last week the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to pursue negotiations with the EU with a view to finalising the legal instruments setting out the modalities of accession. The high-level political negotiations stalled in the Autumn of 2011 after the completion of most of the technical work on accession.

The two co-chairs of the Joint Informal Body, Pietro Marcenaro and Carlo Casini, said it was “of the utmost importance” that these negotiations reach a speedy conclusion and that the momentum towards an agreement is not lost.

“EU accession to the ECHR is crucial with a view to securing a common space for human rights protection across the European continent,” they said. “It is thus essential that the modalities of such accession are completed at a political level as rapidly as possible, and that all outstanding questions are clarified.”

The two co-chairs recalled that agreement had already been reached on arrangements to ensure the European Parliament’s participation in the sittings of the Parliamentary Assembly when the latter elects judges to the European Court of Human Rights.

They added: “For its part, the Joint Informal Body will continue to follow the negotiations closely in order to take stock of matters and, as appropriate, prompt progress at the political level, offering as it does a useful platform for the two parliamentary institutions to share information and co-operate on issues of common concern.”

The Joint Informal Body, which brings together members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and members of the European Parliament, was holding its third meeting in Paris. It was created in 2011.

Book and Launch on ECHR and Homosexuality

Paul Johnson of the University of York has written a book entitled 'Homosexuality and the European Court on Human Rights' to be published in October by Routledge. This is the abstract:

This is the first book-length study of the Court’s jurisprudence in respect of sexual orientation. It offers a socio-legal analysis of the substantial number of decisions and judgments of the Strasbourg organs on the wide range of complaints brought by gay men and lesbians under the European Convention on Human Rights. Providing a systematic analysis of Strasbourg case law since 1955 and examining decades of decisions that have hitherto remained obscure, the book considers the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of the Convention and how this has fashioned lesbian and gay rights in Europe. Going beyond doctrinal analysis by employing a nuanced sociological consideration of Strasbourg jurisprudence, Paul Johnson shows how the Court is a site at which homosexuality is both socially constructed and regulated. He argues that although the Convention is conceived as a ‘living instrument’ to be interpreted ‘in the light of present-day conditions’ the Court’s judgments have frequently forged and advanced new social conditions in respect of homosexuality. Johnson argues that the Court’s jurisprudence has an extra-legal importance because it provides an authoritative and powerful discursive resource that can be mobilized by lesbians and gay men to challenge homophobic and heteronormative social relations in contemporary societies. As such, the book considers how the Court’s interpretation of the Convention might be evolved in the future to better protect lesbian and gay rights and lives.

The book will be launched on Thursday 1 November at 7pm in bookshop Gay's the Word in London. The author will introduce the book, followed by a discussion. People interested in joining can send an email to paul.johnson at york.ac.uk . Congratulations, Paul!

Progress in EU-ECHR Negotiations?

As MultiRights Blog reports, the negotiations on the European Union's accession to the ECHR seem to have reached a new phase. Last week, the Council of Europe's Committee of Minister instructed the Steering Committee for Human Rights to pursue negotations with the EU in order to finalise the agreement. This, the Committee indicated, should be done without delay. The decisions of the Committee of Ministers can be found here.

New Policy on Reports of Judgments and Decisions

Even though most people will use the HUDOC database these days to find cases, the sheer amount of output of the Strasbourg Court means that authoritative selections of case-law remain very valuable. The Court's own Reports of Judgments and Decisions are the most important source in that respect. Recently, the Court has changed its policy regarding which judgments and decisions it will include in those reports. It will concentrate even more on only the most important decisions and judgments. The jurisconsult of the Court - the person responsible for case-law monitoring and preventing case-law conflicts - has made what the Court calls "a more fine-tuned selection." for 2007-2011 as well as for the first three months of 2012. The lists of selected cases can be found on this special page of the Court's website. It shows, for example, that in the first few months of this year, in the Court's own eyes the most important cases were: Stanev, Von Hannover, Sitaropoulos and Others, Hirsi Jamaa and Others, Konstantin Markin, Aksu, and Austin and Others.

The European Court and International Law

Julian Arato of New York University has published an article on the recourse to international law by the European Court of Human Rights.The article is entitled 'Constitutional Transformation in the ECtHR: Strasbourg's Expansive Recourse to External Rules of International Law' and has been published in the newest issue of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law (vol. 37, no. 2, 2012) and also on ssrn. This is the abstract:

The European Court of Human Rights is a constituted judicial body, established by international treaty among the member States of the Council of Europe. Yet it can hardly be described as a static creature of the Parties. The Court has undergone dramatic constitutional change since its inception, resulting in an organization significantly more autonomous, independent, and robust in its maturity. Certain important changes have been achieved through formal amendment by the Parties. At the same time, however, the constitution of the ECtHR has undergone a quieter, informal kind of development – through the Court’s own practice in the discharge of its normal functions. Change of this latter type may be called constitutional transformation, by contrast to formal constitutional amendment. This paper is about the transformative effect of the Court’s approach to the interpretation of its constituent instrument, the ECHR. More specifically, the focus is on its approach to one particular technique of interpretation, codified at VCLT 31(3)(c) (providing for the consideration of external sources of international law). On the one hand, as is often recognized, the Court relies on the technique to ground a dramatic and evolutive mode of treaty interpretation – expanding the substantive rights of the Convention in light of sources external to it. Yet on the other hand, I want to suggest, the Court gives 31(3)(c) itself an astonishingly broad construction, to justify considering an extraordinary array of external sources – thereby expanding its own material competence to develop the Convention on the basis of developments outside of the Convention. This latter dimension of the Court’s interpretive approach, I argue, has brought about a genuine constitutional transformation.

School Open

School will be open today at the usual time. Please make sure that children have warm clothing and footwear as there is still a lot of snow on the ground.
Please drive safely.