The ECtHR in IO Survival

Team Members: J. Manzanarez, H. Perdue and D. Waddilove*

*Note: The team members contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order.

ECtHR_Survival.pdf

Infographic

Please look at the infographic for the topic explored by the team.

Podcast

Please listen to the team's podcast with Google Chrome. The transcript can be found here.

University of Georgia 5.m4a

Advocacy Letter

Please read the team's letter to the President of the ECtHR, Robert Spano.

Letter_FinalProduct.pdf

Blog Post

Survival of the European Court of Human Rights

How can the European Court of Human Rights be reformed to better combat human rights violations in its member states?

Figure 1: ECtHR in Session (The Council of Europe 2019)

Figure 2: The path of case brought before the ECtHR (European Court of Human Rights 2022)

What is the ECtHR?

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is an international court that presides over 46 member states and is based in Strasbourg, France. The court system was developed in 1959 and has been acting as a full-time court for individuals to directly apply to be heard by since 1998 (The European 2021). Its primary focus is to uphold human rights protections by evaluating cases involving member countries accused of violating the civil and political rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The European Convention on Human Rights protects rights to life, freedom, and security; freedom of expression, thought, conscience, and religion; respect for private and family life; the right to take part in state elections; the right to a fair trial; and the right to property and pleasure of possessions (The Council of Europe 2018). Accordingly, the Court interprets the rulings of the Convention, judges cases of potential violations by member states, and ensures these member states in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights make changes to address these issues (The European 2021). This is accomplished through the lengthy process shown in Figure 2. Since 1959, the ECtHR has pursued thousands of accusations of human rights violations in an attempt to get guilty countries' governments to change their legislation and administrative practices, but to what extent has the Court been successful in its mission?

The Problem

Nearly 10,000 judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights – 9,944 to be exact – have not been successfully implemented by the Court's member countries (Hervey 2018). Some of these cases date all the way back to 1992 (Hervey 2018). It is evident that, despite having some past success, the ECtHR lacks an effective method of consistently ensuring member states found to be perpetuating human rights violations follow through on the action plans they propose after receiving a judgment from the Court. This means that member states are able to continue violating the civil and political rights of their people with little to no penalties.

ECtHR Survival

Will the ECtHR be able to survive long term? There are hundreds of international organizations (IOs), but some are better than others in terms of enforcement, resources, and level of autonomy (Tallberg 2018). That being said, the better an IO's autonomy and enforcement mechanisms, the more likely they are to survive and the more effective they are at achieving the goals of the organization (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni 2018).

At the moment, the ECtHR does not have the capacity to effectively enforce its rulings, so its very existence could be considered unnecessary by some of the Court's member states. In order for an international organization to be considered functional and "alive," it must hold regular meetings and consistently make progress towards its stated goals. While the ECtHR does hold regular meetings, as seen in figure 4, to hear cases that have been brought forth, the Court still falls short in its power to affect member states' behavior and is therefore unable to meet the goals set forth by the organization. Because of this, we consider the ECtHR to be a "zombie" IO, an international organization that "continue[s] to operate, but without progress toward [its] mandates."

Why is it so important that the ECtHR make the shift from being a "zombie" IO to an "alive" IO? Suppose the lack of implementation of action plans following court judgments persists among the member states of the ECtHR. Member states will become bolder and bolder in defying the Court's judgements, causing the Court's authority to continue to crumble. It is possible this could eventually lead to the total dissolution of the Court. The European Court of Human Rights faces a low chance of long-term survival if nothing is done to ensure its judgements hold weight.

Figure 3: The ECtHR logo (The Council of Europe 2018)

Figure 4: ECtHR Meeting (The Council of Europe 2022)

Figure 5: Funding increase photo (Abyde 2022)

The Solution

It is likely the rampant problem of states' lack of follow-through stems from countries not receiving any financial aid from the Court to assist them in the costly and time-consuming process of reforming and/or eliminating the legislation and systems within their governments that are responsible for violations of the rights of their citizens.

Therefore, we propose a shift in the ECtHR's annual budget, which would enable the organization to allocate a portion of funds to monetarily assist member states in following through with their proposed action plans. The ECtHR's 2022 budget is €74,510,300 (ECHR Budget 2022) . This budget funds judges' remuneration, staff salaries, and operational expenditure, but none of it is devoted to helping member states make needed changes after receiving their judgements from the Court. Often, lack of action by member states is not for lack of desire to change. Rather, lack of action is often due to a shortage of the funds and resources needed to right the members' wrongs. In order to combat this rampant problem, member states must contribute a larger percentage of their annual GDP for the greater good of the organization. This addition to the Court's annual budget should then be allocated to helping member states carry out their plans for change.

Sources

The Council of Europe. (2018) “What are our rights and liberties?” https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-convention/our-rights (Accessed: October 4, 2022).

Eilstrup-Sangiovanni. (2018) “Death of International Organizations. the Organizational Ecology of Intergovernmental Organizations, 1815–2015 - The Review of International Organizations.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-018-9340-5 (Accessed: October 11, 2022).

The European Court of Human Rights (2021) "The European Court of Human Rights." https://www.coe.int/en/web/tbilisi/europeancourtofhumanrights (Accessed: October 11, 2022).

The European Court of Human Rights (2022) “ECHR Budget - European Court of Human Rights.” https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Budget_ENG.pdf (Accessed: October 11, 2022).

Hervey, G. (2018) “Europe's human rights court struggles to lay down the law." https://www.politico.eu/article/human-rights-court-ilgar-mammadov-azerbaijan-struggles-to-lay-down-the-law/ (Accessed: October 4, 2022).

Tallberg et al. (2018) "NGO Access in International Organizations: Information, Access and Exchange." British Journal of Political Science, 48, 213-238. (Accessed: October 11, 2022)

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