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Anonymous gamete donation creates a specific conflict between human rights and public interests under Article 8 of the ECHR. This was first assessed in the ECtHR's landmark decision in Gauvin-Fournis and Silliau v. France of 7 September 2023. This article critically analyses this judgment, taking into account the European legal framework for anonymous gamete donation, the recommendations of the competent authorities and the previous case law of the ECtHR on the right to know one's biological origin as an integral part of one's identity that is protected under the right to private and family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ankara Barosu Dergileri is the property of Ankara Bar Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The high-level Reykjavík Declaration (2023) recognises the importance of local authorities (the lowest tier of administration within a state) for the functioning of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) system. This article seeks to provide a better understanding of the human rights role of local authorities and the potential of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as a promoter of this role. It examines how local authorities appear in the judgments of the ECtHR and assesses the extent to which they provide clear pictures of local authorities and their role in human rights issues. The analysis draws on a close reading of a sample of cases encompassing a diverse set of states and human rights issues. It shows how the ECtHR's reasoning indicates what is required of a local authority for a specific set of circumstances, but also the general attributes of local authorities that are conducive to the provision of human rights. For judgments of the ECtHR to promote local authorities as human rights actors, local authorities and their interlocutors need to be able to identify the judgments and the elements of reasoning therein that are of most relevance for their circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho Politico is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper examines the tension between democracy, human rights, and power-sharing constitutional arrangements in multi-ethnic states, focusing on the Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina case and contrasting it with recent Latvian cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It analyses the significance of the Kovačević judgement, which found Bosnia’s ethnic-based power-sharing system discriminatory, and the Latvian cases, where the ECtHR accepted ‘constitutional identity’ as a legitimate aim for differential treatment. The paper discusses the concept of constitutional identity, its recognition by the ECtHR, and the potential challenges it poses to the protection of human rights. It explores the balance between respecting democratic choices, constitutional identities, and upholding individual rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Fundamental rights to positive state action are costly. An allocation in favor of one individual rightsholder always results in lower allocations in favor of others. The dominant approach in fundamental rights doctrine assumes these conflicts can be resolved judicially by balancing competing rights and other public needs. In practice, carrying out an in-depth balancing in resource allocation cases proves challenging but constitutional courts developed different strategies and concepts to deal with costly rights. The European Court of Human Rights applies a “wide” margin of appreciation and requires that positive state obligations do “not impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities.” Following the German Federal Constitutional Court, several constitutional courts have applied a concept known as the “proviso of the possible.” The proviso of the possible constrains positive rights and results in a wide margin of discretion granted to political authorities. This article attempts to investigate the specific meaning of the “proviso of the possible” in the context of European fundamental rights law by comparing it against alternative doctrinal concepts. The investigation aims to identify common legal principles and methods to deal with fundamental rights conflicts over scarce public resources.

It was in 1976 when, in the case of Handyside v. the United Kingdom , the European Court of Human Rights held that the European Convention on Human Rights "leaves to the Contracting States a margin of appreciation". Forty-five years later, in 2021, Protocol No. 15 entered into force and incorporated the "margin of appreciation" into the Preamble of the ECHR. For a long time, the doctrine has been considered a unique feature of the European human rights system, consistently ignored or explicitly rejected by other international adjudicators. This article aims to assess whether the recent international judicial practice still confirms such a conclusion, or whether the margin has migrated across the case law of different international courts and is, nowadays, a doctrine that can be applied to the assessment of the scope and content of international obligations and to the review of compliance with such obligations in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The independence of the judiciary represents a principle with constitutional value, which has experienced several developments and accumulations in recent years. An important but unexplored perspective is the extent of control and censorship of the constitutional court over legislative options in the issue of judicial independence. The limits of appreciations allow the legislator to vary the regulation in relation to the constitutional standard, but the dosage of the regulations must be checked in relation to the principle of proportionality with the observed interference. Thus, the limits of appreciations of the legislator must remain under constitutional control, in the national landscape these concepts oscillate between intensity and lightness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines cases of conflicting decisions between the ECHR and State Courts. I argue for 'discordant adjudicative parity.' According to discordant adjudicative parity, there are compelling non-instrumental reasons for having both international adjudicative institutions and state adjudicative institutions that can make binding, conflicting decisions. Binding decisions by international adjudicative institutions embody the understanding that human rights are duties rather than decisions that are voluntarily undertaken. State Courts facilitate deliberative engagement on the part of citizens as, ultimately, the citizens are in charge of States' courts. I use this analysis to justify the principle of subsidiarity in European law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental rights to positive state action are costly. An allocation in favor of one individual rightsholder always results in lower allocations in favor of others. The dominant approach in fundamental rights doctrine assumes these conflicts can be resolved judicially by balancing competing rights and other public needs. In practice, carrying out an in-depth balancing in resource allocation cases proves challenging but constitutional courts developed different strategies and concepts to deal with costly rights. The European Court of Human Rights applies a "wide" margin of appreciation and requires that positive state obligations do "not impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities." Following the German Federal Constitutional Court, several constitutional courts have applied a concept known as the "proviso of the possible." The proviso of the possible constrains positive rights and results in a wide margin of discretion granted to political authorities. This article attempts to investigate the specific meaning of the "proviso of the possible" in the context of European fundamental rights law by comparing it against alternative doctrinal concepts. The investigation aims to identify common legal principles and methods to deal with fundamental rights conflicts over scarce public resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customary law is a dynamic source of international law that forms by various act of international players. Applying of margin of appreciation and its invoking is involved the one that can raise its formation as a customary rule. It has been examined in this research whether states invoking on margin of appreciation before any dispute settlement bodies as a defense and its assessment, will be led to its formation as a customary rule or not. For this purpose, requirements needed to identify customary rule, as well as capabilities and challenges that dispute settlement bodies, in particular ECHR, faces with, to stablish customary rules, has been assessed. by distinguishing between the role of states and dispute settlement bodies, the article concludes that Despite of possibility of its formation, there are certain restrictions and ambiguities for recognizing the content of the margin of appreciation as a customary rule, which international law rules has not yet provided any answer to them.

The present study focuses on presenting the positive obligations of the signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights, under Art. 8 of the Convention, to provide a legal framework enabling same-sex couples to enjoy adequate legal protection of their relationship. In order to achieve the proposed research objective, we considered the most recent cases before the European Court of Human Rights, namely the case Buhuceanu et al. against Romania, respectively the case of Fedotova against Russia.

In recent years, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights has seen a new normative turn in grounding subsidiarity when interpreting the substantive rights in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court has placed emphasis on subsidiarity considerations when the respondent state can demonstrate the democratic and rule of law pedigree of its rights-interfering actions. The Court's interpretation of the procedural rule of the exhaustion of domestic remedies has not caught up with this new normative turn. This article argues for the 'normative realignment' thesis. Grounds for substantive subsidiarity are normatively defensible on democracy and rule of law considerations, and grounds for procedural subsidiarity can and should be more closely aligned with the same considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade. The European Court of Human Rights is also expected to decide on several abortion cases. In this paper, the interpretative approaches of both courts are compared. Whereas the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decided on an originalist approach to the Constitution, the highest European court has always regarded the European Convention on Human Rights as a living instrument. As a result, domestic laws regulating the interruption of pregnancy are seen by the Strasbourg court as interferences with a fundamental right, the right to respect for private life. Although member states of the Council of Europe enjoy a wide margin of appreciation with regard to the circumstances in which abortion will be permitted, its highest court put forward the state's positive obligation to secure pregnant women's right to effective respect for their physical and psychological integrity in several landmark judgments. In this way, it ensures the existence of effective mechanisms in countries with a poor record of implementing the right to a lawful abortion. Albeit at a minimum, the Strasbourg court offers protection, whereas the U.S. Supreme Court no longer does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Prudentia Iuris is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The proportionality is a general principle of law, signifying the ideas of balance, justice, responsibility and the needed adequate suiting of the measures adopted by the State to the situation in fact and to the purpose aimed by the law. The principle is expressly formulated in the European Union documents but also in the constitutions of other states. The normative or jurisprudential regulation of the principle explains the numerous preoccupations at scientific level to identify its dimensions. In this study, the principle of proportionality is analyzed from the perspective of the philosophy of the law, in order to try to identify its value dimensions that are to be found in the normative consecrations or in jurisprudence. The normative of jurisprudential dimension of proportionality, as a law principle has its content in the concepts and philosophical categories that make up the contents of the principle of proportionality, in the law philosophy’s main periods and currents. We consider that such a scientific attempt is useful, having into consideration the importance of this principle for the contemporary law. The principle of proportionality is an important guaranty in the observance of the human rights, mainly in situations in which their exercising is being restricted by the actions ordered by state’s authorities, being at the same time an important criterion to delimit the discretionary power from the power excess in the activity of state’s authority. In our opinion, only in the extent of our knowledge and understanding of the philosophical contents of this principle it is possible this one’s correct applying in jurisprudence. This study is aiming to be a pleading for the possibility and usefulness of law’s philosophy in this epoch dominated by juridical pragmatism and normativism.

The present study focuses on presenting the positive obligations of the signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights, under Art. 8 of the Convention, to provide a legal framework enabling same-sex couples to enjoy adequate legal protection of their relationship. In order to achieve the proposed research objective, we considered the most recent cases before the European Court of Human Rights, namely the case Buhuceanu et al. against Romania, respectively the case of Fedotova against Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Surrogacy; birth registration; legal parental status; parental order; judicial review; margin of appreciation EN Surrogacy birth registration legal parental status parental order judicial review margin of appreciation 529 532 4 02/07/23 20221201 NES 221201 Most surrogacy arrangements go to plan. Surrogacy, birth registration, parental order, legal parental status, judicial review, margin of appreciation. [Extracted from the article]

The article examines methods of distinguishing positive and negative duties within the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights as applied by the European Court of Human Rights. It highlights problems with tying positive duties to acts and negative duties to omissions, and sets out a supplemental delineation method when those problems lead to systematic classification errors: duties sort as positive if they have the capacity for multiple fulfilment options and negative if they only allow one fulfilment option. These delineation criteria allow for a more consistent reconstruction of case law and point to a causal mechanism for alleged asymmetries in proportionality review and margins of appreciation. Lastly, there are revisionary implications for human rights scholarship. Judgments have been sorted as positive rights cases because they feature a requirement that states commit to legislative amendment, yet performative acts of amendment may be continuous with underlying negative duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Public) morals is a specific example of a general clause that bridges the gap between legal norms and a wide array of non-legal rules. The indeterminacy of this clause allows the standard of morals to be construed with due consideration for various criteria, values, principles and local circumstances. At the same time, in a culturally diverse society, difficulties in translating ethical issues into the legal language come to light. Consequently, we have both national and international legislation in which the premise of (public) morals is the legitimate objective/aim for restricting certain freedoms and rights. In turn, judicial bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights, as described in this paper, encounter problems in interpretation and the need to use different interpretative methods to give the right meaning to this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at emphasizing, in its first part, the development of the European Convention on Human Rights, as it was mirrored during time due to the significant changes that its Protocols brought to the initial form of the European document. More specifically, this approach focuses on the reconfiguration of the Convention under the auspices of Protocol No. 15 (Council of Europe, 2013a) and Protocol No. 16 15 (Council of Europe, 2013b) and tries to map the most important changes brought by these two instruments as well as the manner in which they impacted the procedures and the entire European jurisdictional construct. This way, the first one is an amendment protocol which materializes in the rethinking of the Preamble of the Convention by specifically stating the principle of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation. Therefore, the reason of introducing these two concepts reconfirms their importance while applying the provisions of the Convention. Additionally, this Protocol introduces a few procedural changes as well as a series of aspects related to the structure and the organization of the European Court of Human Rights. Secondly, Protocol No. 16 to the Convention tries to enhance communication between the Court and the domestic courts by introducing the advisory opinion procedure and stating upon those entities entitled to access it, also specifying a series of conditions which have to be fulfilled when seeking for an advisory opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Public Law / Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Strategic Public Management Journal (SPMJ) is the property of Strategic Public Management Journal (SPMJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Iurisprudentia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) protects individuals from the so-called involuntary medical treatments within the framework of the right to respect for private life. Given that the rights guaranteed under Article 8 are not absolute but qualified rights (which can be limited for the reasons enlisted in Article 8, paragraph 2), it is crucial to examine the necessity and proportionality of the measures adopted by the state when deciding on the admissibility of these limitations. In its jurisprudence, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) addressed the issue of involuntary medical treatment in a number of cases, but the issue of compulsory vaccination (of children) was addressed in only one case, Vavrička and others v the Czech Republic (2021). The decision was rendered in April 2021, at the peak of the fight against the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 disease. Having in mind the circumstances at the moment when the decision was made, the fact that the case was decided by the Grand Chamber, and the fact that applications against Greece and France had already been lodged with the Court concerning compulsory vaccination against the COVID-19 disease, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Court had the aforesaid applications in mind when addressing the issue in Vavrička and others. The importance of the Court's decision in the case Vavrička and others and the criteria stated therein for determining the proportionality and necessity of the measure of compulsory vaccination, as well as the width of the margin of appreciation enjoyed by states, is therefore evident. The paper also presents the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Croatia on the issue of compulsory vaccination of children. For the purpose of projecting the direction in which the ECtHR will go when deciding on such cases, the author elaborates on the aforesaid applications before the Court, where the applicants claimed the violation of their Article 8 right due to the introduction of compulsory vaccination against the COVID-19 disease for certain categories of employees. Finally, although the status of compulsory vaccination against the COVID-19 disease has not been resolved before the Court yet, we may draw certain conclusions on the basis of the current direction of the Court's legal reasoning on the proportionality of the measure of compulsory vaccination of children. For this reason, great attention will be given to the doctrine of the margin of appreciation, the concept of "weighing" the rights of individuals against the protection of certain legitimate goals, and the examination of necessity and proportionality by the ECtHR.

Copyright of International Annals of Criminology is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyses the CEDAW Committee's General Recommendations and Views on individual complaints, to evaluate its contribution to the elimination of discrimination against women experienced in the context of migration control. It makes two arguments. First, the Committee's General Recommendations contain a range of doctrinal and empirical shortcomings. This opacity, and these omissions, considerably reduce the value of the Committee's statements as a means by which States' discriminatory migration control practices might be contested. Second, the Committee's decisions, in communications concerned with discrimination experienced in the context of migration control, are inconsistent with those standards that it has set, and with the decisions it makes in other types of cases. A detailed analysis of the jurisprudence grounds the conclusion that the Committee is, in practice, according States a margin of appreciation that varies according to the subject of the complaint. Particular, representative communications are drawn on to argue that the margin granted in cases concerned with migration control is over-wide, characteristic not of appropriate (quasi) judicial restraint, but unprincipled deference. The article concludes by suggesting how some of the criticisms outlined may be remedied, notably by the Committee adopting its own justification and proportionality assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper finds out whether the Margin of Appreciation can accommodate children's engagement in work in the field of human rights in rural and urban Ghana drawing on the experiences and perceptions of 60 participants. Qualitative exploratory study was undertaken using semi-structured interviews with parents of children who both were and were not involved in child work (10), and stakeholders, including government officials and NGO representatives (10); focus groups (30); and participant observation techniques (10) in order to gather the needed data. The average age of participants was 31 years. Participants were purposively sampled across rural areas (Ankaase, Anwiankwanta and Kensere), and urban areas (Jamestown, Korle Gonno and Chorkor). Interviews were recorded, and transcribed, using a framework approach as the main data analysis method. The paper argues that there is the need to understand diversity in the field of human rights and accommodate the best interests of the child to local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Vavricka and Others versus the Czech Republic, in which the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights addressed whether compulsory childhood vaccination is in line with the European Convention of Human Rights.

Bill 21 is a highly contested law adopted in Quebec that bans certain civil servants from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their duties. Rather than analyse Bill 21 on its merits, the article treats it as a test case for global legal pluralism, examining how the validity of the law from an international perspective depends on the frames one uses to analyse it. It finds that a basic tension permeates the entire debate between a universalist vision of rights and a vision of rights as anchored in particular political configurations that demand a constant process of adaptation. That tension is visible in the dualist opposition between Canadian and international law; in the role of federalism as a significant mediating factor in the implementation of constitutional and international rights; and in the kind of majoritarian check on rights that manifests itself in the Canadian Charter of Rights' 'notwithstanding clause'. Throughout, the article explores how these tensions might be mediated in ways that do not simply oppose international and domestic law but seek to make the most of their interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution considers the case law of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and focuses on the extent to which the Contracting Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can regulate the tobacco, alcohol, and food industries in a manner compatible with their ECHR obligations. After briefly presenting the two key cases dealing specifically with tobacco advertising, this contribution considers the main factors that the ECtHR takes into account when balancing competing concerns, and in particular freedom of commercial expression and public health protection. It concludes that none of these factors is absolute, as the Court considers the strength of each one of them on the facts of each case. Nevertheless, it is clear from its case law that States have a wide margin of appreciation to regulate marketing practices that are inimical to public health and the prevention of non-communicable diseases more specifically, to the extent that even extensive advertising restrictions can be compatible with Article 10 of the ECHR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National regulatory frameworks for assisted dying vary from an absolute ban to rather liberal, albeit conditional, approaches to the practice of assisting patients in terminating their lives. jurisdictions that take a restrictive stance towards assisted dying emphasize the 'absolute' nature of the right to life, whereas states that exhibit a more permissive regime put more emphasis on the right to respect for private life, including in particular the right to self-determination at the end of life. Although the European Court of Human Rights uses the margin of appreciation in such a way as to avoid taking a normative stance on the issue of assisted dying, its case law comprises general rules that have to be complied with when regulating assisted dying. This article examines the reasoning of the Court in cases concerning assisted dying and discusses these rules as they apply to countries that have in place restrictive or permissive assisted dying regimes. This human rights framework will become increasingly important as more and more jurisdictions are introducing or considering legislation on assisted dying. Against this background, this article aims at providing insight into what is expected of national regulations, from a human rights perspective, in the context of assisted dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the problem of interpretation and application in practice of the European human rights standards through autonomous interpretation, as well as to the definition of the role and significance of the doctrine of margin of appreciation in this process. The relevance of the subject matter of research is due to the need to implement effective mechanisms for ensuring and protecting key human rights and freedoms in Ukraine, the establishment of the European principles of law and the European identity. The purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the formation and evolution of the doctrine of autonomous interpretation in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights by studying and synthesizing judicial practice on the application of autonomous interpretation and elaboration on this basis of a system of autonomous concepts that reflect the common European vision of fundamental human rights and are also a kind of foundation of the European human rights law. The methodological basis of the paper are philosophical, general scientific and special research methods, in particular, dialectical, historical, logical, systemic, sociological, and comparative methods. The study concludes that it is through autonomous interpretation based on the European consensus that the European Court of Human Rights establishes imperative standards for the interpretation and application of human rights in practice, which prevents certain violations by particular member states of the Council of Europe, as well as supports the convergence and harmonization of different national legal systems, which contributes to the formation of the most homogeneous legal environment and the European system of human rights protection. The practical feasibility of the study is aimed primarily at applying autonomous concepts in practice, prima facie, by the judiciary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2021 6(1), 57-67 | European Forum Insight of 14 April 2021 | (Table of Contents) I. Propos introductifs et objet de la controverse. - II. De l'importance de l'étourdissement préalable: le cas particulier de l'étourdissement réversible. - III. L'existence de sensibilités européennes comme justification à l'autonomie des Etats membres dans la détermination du rapport bien-être animal et religion. - IV. La valorisation croissante d'une éthique animale: une prise en compte jurisprudentielle de la sensibilité des européens à l'égard de la protection animale. - V. Le marché intérieur garant de la liberté religieuse. - VI. Réflexions conclusives et perspectives d'évolution de la législation européenne en matière d'abattage des animaux. | (Abstract) The Court of Justice of the European Union is once again invited to rule on the conciliation between animal welfare and freedom of religion. Mainly relying on the lack of consensus among the Member States, the Court finds that a national legislation introducing an obligation of reversible stunning is admitted according to Regulation (EC) 1099/2009, art. 13 TFEU and art. 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Can a State that no-longer officially pursues an integration agenda for a group of refugees claim integration as a legitimate aim to interfere with the fundamental rights of said group? If domestic courts’ careful consideration of international human rights law and practice widens the State’s margin of appreciation, is it then narrowed when States ignore national and international organisations’ warnings of non-compliance with human rights law? Can the European Court of Human Rights refer to EU-law to establish the existence of a European consensus when the respondent State in question has opted out of EU-regulation in the area? The Grand Chamber judgment M.A. v Denmark from 9 July 2021 raises these questions but answers only some. This article aims, through an analysis of M.A. v Denmark and its political and legal background, to seek some answers in this carefully worded judgment.

This gloss summarizes and analyzes one of the recent key judgments of the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) in the case concerning Ukraine, while considering the context of hybrid warfare and the special place case-law of the ECtHR has in the Ukrainian legal system. The judgement addresses both: the right to access to the courts and the issue of suspended social payments due to hostilities, the extent of obligations of the state defending itself against aggression towards its nationals and the delicate balance between security, human rights and humanitarian considerations; and as such has much deeper relevance and applicability than to Ukraine alone.

Copyright of Revista Derecho del Estado is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)