Do the “Underlying Values” of the European Convention on Human Rights Begin in 1950?

• Authors: William Schabas
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Prior to its ruling in Janowiec and Others v. Russia, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights had recognised a “humanitarian exception” to the general rule by which the procedural obligations imposed by articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention only arise if the substantive violation of the Convention occurs after the entry into force of the Convention for the respondent State. In Janowiec, the Court was invited to apply this “humanitarian exception” to one of the great unpunished atrocities perpetrated on European soil in the past century. The Court declined to do so, mechanistically imposing its own temporal limitation on the “humanitarian exception” by which the substantive violation of the right to life and the prohibition of ill treatment must take place after the adoption of the Convention on 4 November 1950. The essay concludes that this limitation is questionable, that the reasoning behind it is dubious, and that the result is a regrettable confirmation of a situation of impunity.

Keywords

EN

European Court of Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, Katyn, war crime, NKVD, Janowiec

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Polish Yearbook of International Law
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 33
• Pages: 247-258

Dates

published

2014-07-25

Contributors

author

William Schabas

• Middlesex University, Law School, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, United Kingdom

Identifiers

DOI

10.7420/pyil2013j