European Convention on Human Rights

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M.N. and Others v Belgium: no ECHR protection from refoulement by issuing visas

May 12, 2020

 With its inadmissibility decision in M.N. and Others v Belgium delivered on 5 May 2020, the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR made it clear that individuals who apply for visas at embassies with the intention to seek protection, do not fall within the jurisdiction of the ECHR State Parties in the sense of Article 1 ECHR. As a consequence, the protection from non-refoulement under Article 3 cannot be triggered.  This is a decision preceded by the CJEU judgment in X. and X. v Belgium that had a similar negative result, but on different grounds. As opposed to the ECHR, the EU Charter arguably has no jurisdictional threshold, but the Charter’s triggering does require that the EU member state implements EU law. This condition was not satisfied since CJEU found that an application for a visa on humanitarian grounds was not within the scope of EU. With M.N. and Others v Belgium it became clear that neither is it within the scope of Council of Europe human rights law, since the jurisdiction threshold cannot…

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The Whos, the Whats, and the Whys of the Derogations from the ECHR amid COVID-19

April 11, 2020

 Issues concerning the derogation form the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’ or the ‘Convention’) amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including the question whether the notification is a pre-requisite for making a valid derogation, have been examined in other EJIL:Talk! posts here, here, and here. This post attempts to provide a more detailed account of the…

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Derogating to Deal with Covid 19: State Practice and Thoughts on the Need for Notification

April 10, 2020

In her blog post on EJIL: Talk! (9 April 2020), Dr Stevie Martin drew attention to an interesting development concerning States' measures to deal with Covid 19 and their impact on human rights. She discusses a decision of the England and Wales Court of Protection in which a judge appeared to find that the UK was…

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A Domestic Court’s Attempt to Derogate from the ECHR on behalf of the United Kingdom: the implications of Covid-19 on judicial decision-making in the United Kingdom

April 9, 2020

It is perhaps trite to note that for many countries throughout the world Covid-19 represents an unprecedented (as least in terms of modern peacetime history) public health emergency. It is inevitable that during this time some decisions will be made that are controversial, both ethically and legally. It will take careful reflection in the wake of the pandemic…

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Supervision of Derogations in the Wake of COVID-19: a litmus test for the Secretary General of the Council of Europe

April 6, 2020

The pandemic COVID-19 has triggered a record number of derogations from the European Convention on Human Rights (the ‘ECHR’ or the ‘Convention’). By now, Albania, Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, North Macedonia and Romania have notified the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (the ‘Secretary General’) of their derogations from the ECHR. More States may…

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