Europe
328 Articles
Polish Outrage to Paying Victims of CIA Black Sites—and What the Eur Court Said
Poland will be paying a quarter of a million dollars to two Guantánamo detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The payment arises in the context of the torture of…
The European Convention meets the Crisis in Ukraine
This post is part II of a series on the European Union and Council of Europe’s response to the Ukraine Crisis. In parallel to the muti-pronged EU action I discussed on Friday,…
European Legal (In)Action and the Ukraine Crisis
While political responses, dispersed with rhetoric flourishes, continue to be dispensed by European leaders reacting to the sustained crises that follow from Russian annexation…
The Council of Europe’s Draft Protocol on Foreign Terrorist Fighters is Fundamentally Flawed
The Council of Europe last week released a Draft Additional Protocol to its 2005 Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism intended to assist European countries in implementing…
European Court: U.S. Troops Can Apply for Asylum to Avoid Participating in War Crimes, But …
A US Army soldier loads rockets onto an AH-64 Apache helicopter in Europe. Credit: US Army. On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued a decision holding that American…
Avoiding a “Militant Democratic” Response to the Paris Attacks
The dreadful Paris attack, even more than the recent and similar attacks in Australia and Canada, is likely to produce a demand for strong action. This is not only because the…
The Accountability Matrix Widens: Torture, Black Sites and the European Convention
Long awaited decisions by the European Court of Human Rights emerged last week (initially reported here) that substantially address torture and the complicity of European states…
British Government’s “Fast-Track” Surveillance Legislation Proposals
On July 10, Theresa May, the Home Secretary made an oral statement in the House of Commons introducing “fast track legislation” – the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers…
Hearing Begins in New Surveillance Litigation against UK Security Services
The claim brought by Liberty, the British civil liberties’ organisation, against Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Security Intelligence Services and the…
European Court of Human Rights Rules on Amnesty and Double Jeopardy
On May 27th, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on one of the more contentious issues in the international criminal law and transitional justice sphere; namely whether political…
Assessing Serdar Mohammed through the Prism of Derogation and Detention
Last week the High Court of England and Wales, per Mr Justice Leggatt, delivered a comprehensive judgment in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence [2014] EWHC 1369 (QB). The case…
A Roundup on European Union Responses to the Ukraine Crisis
The European Union (EU) has taken various kinds of action in response to the Ukraine crisis, mostly in the form of general support for the new Ukraine government and targeted…