Human Rights

Article: ECtHR Shows Sensitivity About National Sovereignty

December 07, 2018

Erik Voeten of The Washington Post argues that an October European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling upholding an Austrian court’s conviction of a woman for “blasphemy” regarding the Islamic prophet Muhammed simply shows the “embattled” ECtHR is “extremely reluctant to interfere with state laws on sensitive domestic issues.”
ECtHR Upholds Judgments Against Countries on CIA Renditions

December 07, 2018

AFP reports that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently rejected an appeal from Lithuania and Romania arguing they were not responsible for alleged rights violations related to US Central Intelligence Agency renditions and interrogations of suspected terrorists within their territories.
Timpf: EU Rulebook Trivializes Real Attempts to Counter Sexism

December 07, 2018

According to Katherine Timpf of National Review, EU efforts, through a new translator rulebook on “Gender Neutral Language in the European Parliament,” to suppress the use of words like “mankind” and “manpower” in favor of more gender-inclusive terms could trivialize attempts to counter actual issues of sexism in society.
ECtHR Approves German Prosecution of Man for Abortion Comments

December 05, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held in September that Germany had not violated the right of an anti-abortion activist to freedom of expression by prosecuting him for accusing four doctors who performed abortions of having committed “aggravated murder,” finding a legitimate interest in preserving these doctors’ right to “private life.”
NGOs Call for EU “International Justice” Envoy

December 05, 2018

In September, a group of nongovernmental organizations including Human Rights Watch published a letter calling on EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini to establish an EU Special Representative to advance European policy across the globe on international humanitarian law and “international justice.”
CoE Body Places Denmark in Non-Compliance Procedure on Corruption

December 04, 2018

In September, the Council of Europe’s (CoE) anti-corruption body GRECO placed Denmark in its non-compliance procedure for failing to adopt a sufficient number of the body’s recommendations on mechanisms to prevent corruption in the country’s Parliament and judiciary.
EU Agency Reviews Eurosur Impacts on Fundamental Rights

December 04, 2018

Following a European Commission request to review the European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur), the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights produced a report containing a list of policy recommendations including a call for countries to bind themselves to explicit fundamental rights language in deals on border surveillance.
ECtHR: Exclusion of Woman in Hijab from Courtroom Violated Rights

December 03, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently held that Belgian authorities had violated the right to religious freedom of a woman excluded from entering a courtroom because she declined to remove her Islamic headscarf in line with court regulations.
ECtHR: British Bulk Surveillance Violated Rights

December 03, 2018

In a September ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided that British intelligence services’ system of bulk interception of online communications, replaced by legislation with a new system, infringed the right to privacy under European human rights law because it did not contain sufficient safeguards against abuse.
ECtHR Finds Turkish Violation of Publisher’s Free Speech Right

November 30, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently ruled that Turkey had violated the right of a publisher to freedom of expression by prosecuting him for denigrating the Turkish state, finding that the book in question, about the disappearance of journalist, was not “gratuitously offensive” and did not incite to hatred or violence.