The Case Law of the European Convention on Human Rights on the Question of Asylum Seekers and Refugees

There are many international legal instruments protecting asylum seekers and refugees from an abusive behaviour of the receiving  State. The Geneva Convention of 1951 on refugees is one of them. But none of them provides for a judicial protection, namely a protection which is given by a court of justice with the force of a binding judgment. Consequently victims of violations have recourse to the European Court of human Rights, which applies the European Convention on Human Rights, and eventually provides clauses covering certain violations of asylum seekers and refugees rights against the perpetrator European State.

Compliance with the Judgments of the ECtHR

In March 2015 the Italian Constitutional Court judgment on the Varvara case, concluded that only consolidated law (diritto consolidato) of the Strasburg Court is binding in the domestic legal order. Although the notion of consolidated law is not clearly established, it includes at least Grand Chamber and pilot judgments and eventually committee judgments. Chamber judgments are binding only inter partes and have no other effect in similar cases sharing the same structural problems. In July 2015 the Russian Constitutional Court delivered a judgment on the Federal Law on the Accession of the Russian Federation to the ECHR, which affirmed that the judgments of the Strasbourg Court would not be enforceable if and when they contradict the Russian Constitution, according to its reading by the Russian Constitutional Court. This line of domestic case-law puts in question the legal force of the European Court's case law and of the European Convention itself. Other cases in UK and German jurisdictions raise similar concerns. The tense relationship between some Supreme and Constitutional Courts and the European Court raises the question of principle: What are the obligations of the Contracting Parties to the Convention to implement the European Court's judgments? 

The Refugee Crisis in France. A View from the Ground

The AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe) is a London-based charity providing free legal advice on European human rights law and European Union law. The vision of the AIRE Centre is to promote awareness of European law rights and assist marginalised individuals and those in vulnerable circumstances to assert those rights.

The AIRE Centre has acted as a representative and intervener in more than 120 cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and 15 cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and many cases before the UK Supreme Court.

The Common European Asylum System and the Plight of International Protection Seekers – Ensuring Protection of Human Rights in Times of Crisis and Emergency

Political debates and popular discussions of mass migration and refugee flows are increasingly dominated by a language of ‘crisis’ and the measures adopted at European Union (EU) level are conceived with an emergency-driven mind-set. This has led to the rise of unorthodox institutional and policy developments as a pragmatic rather than a legal response to address the formidable challenges posed by the mass movement of refugees that is witnessed in Europe. [1] Schengen once seemed like a hermetic system: sealed, internally fluid and unbreakable. [2] But that was before the conflict in Syria sent a veritable flood of displaced people in search of a safe harbour into Europe. [3]

Towards a New Social Contract in a Debt-Ridden Southern Economy? The City of Athens Perspective

While the question of whether cities can change the world feeds passionate debates and initiatives around the world, the challenge for Greece’s capital city is rather less ambitious. How can Athens cope with the social impact of the economic crisis in a sustainable way? Indeed, this is a crucial question when one bears in mind the severity of the crisis, on the one hand, and, on the other, the metropolitan size of Athens, which gathers approximately 660,000 registered residents. The fact is that Athens, Greece’s administrative and economic center, has symmetrically suffered from the socioeconomic decline. All these happen in a country where, admittedly, family solidarity can smoothen the crisis’ social impact in rural areas, but not so much in big urban centers, like Athens.