European Convention on Human Rights

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The Chișinău Declaration in the Data: Non-Refoulement and States’ Insatiable Appetite for a Restrained Court

June 19, 2026

There is a striking hidden controversy at the heart of the recent Chișinău Declaration issued by the members of the Council of Europe on May 15, 2026. All 46 member states have adopted a coordinated demand, asking that the European Court of Human Rights (the Court, the ECtHR) in particular to narrow their interpretation of Article 3 (the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) in cases involving irregular migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and to recognize the sovereign right to remove foreign nationals. The controversy we are speaking about is beyond the scope of the Declaration’s text, although the text received a fair number of criticisms (see here, here, here, and here). Beyond its ambition, what makes this Declaration striking is its timing and focus. The states pressing hardest for a more restrained Court are making their request in an area where the Court has already been most deferential. For over a decade, the Court has already been doing exactly (albeit quietly) what member states are demanding in the Declaration. The…

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Can the Living Instrument Doctrine Be Reversed?

June 17, 2026

On 15 May 2026, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE), meeting at ministerial level in Chişinău (Republic of Moldova), adopted a declaration in which the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) was called upon to recalibrate the standard of human rights protection in the field of migration policy. Much has been written…

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From “Blinking Red” to AMIA: An Emerging Standard of Intelligence Failure Under the Right to Life

June 10, 2026

On 1 September 2004, more than a thousand people were taken hostage in School No. 1 in Beslán, North Ossetia. Three days later, at least 334 of them — including 186 children — were dead. On 18 July 1994, a vehicle laden with explosives detonated in front of the headquarters of the AMIA — the Asociación Mutual…

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The ECtHR’s First Victimisation Judgment… 50 years after the 1975 Equal Pay Directive

May 14, 2026

In December 2025, in Ortega Ortega v. Spain, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), for the first time, found that unremedied employer retaliation against a sex discrimination complainant amounted to sex discrimination. The domestic courts upheld a woman’s dismissal after she complained about unequal pay. The ECtHR found a violation of Article 14 with Article 8 ECHR, holding…

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On Navalny, the Law, Lies, and the Attribution of Murder

March 18, 2026

On 14 February 2026, in a joint statement, the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands publicly accused the Russian Federation of assassinating the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died on 16 February 2024 while imprisoned in a penal colony in Siberia. The five states alleged that Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, a toxin naturally…

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