It is ironic that Ministers of Justice of the 46 Council of Europe (CoE) member states convened on International Human Rights Day to discuss how they might reduce the scope of their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Rather than a much-needed discussion about the effectiveness of the system, for the first time in…

Introduction  If a week is a long time in politics, then two years is an eternity for the Council of Europe. At the Reykjavik summit in May 2023, European leaders across the political spectrum reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to the European Convention on Human Rights as a mechanism to promote peace and stability and the…

In this reflection piece, we will offer a few brief observations on the blog posts authored by Alice Donald, Kirill Koroteev and Nils Muižnieks, to whom we are most grateful. The three contributions appear to complement one another in broadly contending that more could—and perhaps should—have been done while Russia remained a member of the Council of Europe…