Human Rights

CoE Anti-torture Committee Seeks German Prison Reforms

August 03, 2017

The Council of Europe's (CoE) committee on torture has published a report calling on Germany to reduce the use of "mechanical restraints" and solitary confinement in its prisons and warning that diverging confinement standards are in use in different federal states in the country.
FRA Aims to Communicate to "Intolerant" Society

August 03, 2017

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) hosted a meeting in June with communications experts to address the FRA's "failure" to persuade an "increasingly intolerant" world that the global human rights agenda is important.
FRA Seeks to Promote Rights Agenda Through Arts

August 03, 2017

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) recently hosted a group of artists to discuss the "shared space between arts and human rights," including how the FRA might use art to "help generate emotions and empathy" in support of its promotion of the global human rights agenda.
ECJ Official Seeks Looser Rules for Migrant Spouses

August 02, 2017

In a May opinion, an Advocate General for the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) found that EU law prohibited the UK from restricting the right of the spouse of a person who migrated from Spain to remain in that country solely on the basis that the Spanish migrant had become a naturalized citizen of the UK and was therefore no longer the beneficiary of rules on "free movement."
FRA Calls for EU "Strategic Framework" on Rights

August 02, 2017

In its 2017 Fundamental Rights Report, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) calls on the EU to create an "internal strategic framework for fundamental rights" to ensure the implementation of the global human rights agenda within the bloc.
CoE Official Seeks Reform of Swiss Migration Policies

August 02, 2017

Following a visit to Switzerland, the Council of Europe's (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks called on the country's government to reform its legislation to ensure that it offers special protection to "vulnerable" migrants arriving in its territory and criticized what he perceived to be inadequate funding for the country's national human rights institution.
FRA Seeks Deepened Cooperation on Rights Agenda

August 02, 2017

At the latest meeting of the agency's management board, leaders of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) called for more institutionalized cooperation between the FRA, European national human rights institutions, and European "equality bodies," all of which seek to mainstream the modern human rights agenda in European countries.
ECtHR: Russia Failed to Review Electoral Irregularities

August 02, 2017

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Russian authorities failed to seriously review the alleged manipulation of city and state election results in St. Petersburg in 2011, finding that the voiding of over 50,000 votes and discrepancies between voting counts justified an investigation to satisfy the complainants' right to free elections.
ECtHR: Spain Violated Privacy Rights in Child Pornography Investigation

August 02, 2017

In a May judgment, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that Spanish law enforcement authorities had violated a man's privacy rights by searching his computer, which was given to them by a computer technician who had discovered child pornography among its files, prior to obtaining authorization from a judge.
ECtHR: Lithuanian Life Sentences Violate Rights

August 02, 2017

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that various measures permitting the review in Lithuania of prisoners' life sentences for aggravated offenses, including a presidential pardon process, did not allow these prisoners a sufficient prospect of release as required by European human rights law.