On Saturday 20 March 2021, Turkey woke up to a historic first – the announcement of its first withdrawal from a human rights treaty by the President. A presidential decision declared that Turkey was leaving the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. This is the convention better known, most ironically,…

The German Constitutional Court (GCC) declared, in its ruling on May 19th, that the surveillance of non-German individuals outside of Germany was unconstitutional. The Court’s judgment on the German Act on the Federal Intelligence Service (Gesetz über den Bundesnachrichtendienst, or the BND-Gesetz) has not attracted enough legal commentary in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 21 May 2018, Qatar become the third country in the Gulf region to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This followed Kuwait in 1996 and Bahrain in 2006. Qatar’s ratification came with a long list of reservations and statements. That these reservations and statements have similarities to those of its two…