Faltering Steps on the Path to Reform of the Strasbourg Enforcement System

As we examined in a previous issue of the Review , 1 the Group of Wise Persons (GWP) established by the Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe in 2005 to develop proposals for safeguarding the long-term effectiveness of the international control system under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) issued an interim report in May 2006. 2 In that report, the GWP ‘stressed the need for [Protocol 14] to enter rapidly into force’. 3 Indeed, all the Member States had agreed the text of these institutional reforms in May 2004. 4 By late 2006, only Russia had not ratified Protocol 14. Then in December 2006 the Russian State Duma voted against ratification of this Protocol. It appears that Russian political opinion has become increasingly critical of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights (‘Court’) finding that State to be in breach of its obligations under the ECHR. The Grand Chamber judgment (subject to the dissent of Judge Kovler, the judge of Russian nationality) holding Russia partly responsible for the actions of the separatist regime of the ‘Moldavian Republic of Transdniestria’, based in eastern Moldova, in the case of Ilascu and Others v Moldova and Russia5 particularly angered the Russian political elite. As all Member States have to ratify Protocol 14 for it to come into force, the vote of the Russian Duma has stalled the Strasbourg Court's ability to begin utilising the new more efficient organisational arrangements provided therein.

Convention · Enforcement · Human rights · Interim · Nationality · Political dissent · Political science · Politics · Ratification · State (computer science) · Treaty · European and International Law Studies · European Criminal Justice and Data Protection · International Law and Human Rights · Law

• (Non)renewable Terms and Judicial Independence in the European Court of Human Rights

  Øyvind Stiansen•The Journal of Politics•2021

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