Gross Violations of Human Rights: Invoking the European Convention on Human Rights in the Case of Turkey

Abstract

Situations of gross violation of human rights require a larger response than is possible through the invocation of complaints mechanisms in international human rights treaties. Nevertheless such international legal procedures can have an influence through the impartial establishment of disputed facts and international accountability. The European Convention on Human Rights has been invoked against Turkey by a large number of citizens of Kurdish origin claiming to be victims of practices of violation by the security forces in the emergency region of the South East. The experience of these cases before the Commission and Court to date demonstrates the hurdles that an individual complainant faces in seeking to prove alleged patterns of gross violation. These cases which have involved a major role for the Commission in fact-finding have also produced a new emphasis on the importance of the right to a domestic remedy as part of a State's commitments under the Convention. Alter the coming into force of Protocol 11 the new Court may well be faced with new situations of violent conflict or of minority tensions which may necessitate radical changes to its powers, procedures and practice.