Hate Crimes: Evaluation of Lithuanian Courts’ Decisions in the Light of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights

The urgency of the issue of human rights implementation is determined by its permanent nature. Human rights ensuring has become not only a moral imperative, but also a key indicator of the countries' development and their readiness to cooperate in the international arena. Human rights implementation is an important component of any democratic society. The level of freedom and justice within society depends on how efficiency human rights are implemented. The European Court of Human Rights activity, the practice of which is recognized as a source of national law, is of particular importance. The purpose of the study is to cover the practice of the European Court of Human Rights as a factor in improving the human rights provision in Ukraine. It is emphasized that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is considered as having a precedent nature, although the system of decisions of the Strasbourg Court does not have formal features characteristic of "classical” precedent law. It is indicated that the European Court of Human Rights practice can influence national law in several ways: the use of legal provisions formulated by the European Court of Human Rights by national courts; interpretation by national public authorities of the norms of national legislation through legal provisions formulated by the European Court of Human Rights; amending national legislation in accordance with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights; development of the human rights doctrine. It is emphasized that the decisions of the Court are binding for all member states, parties to the Convention. Therefore, national judicial authorities are also obliged to apply the legal provisions set forth in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in cases where they concern the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It is summarized that the European Court of Human Rights practice is a crucial factor in the development of domestic law, contributing to the improvement of the human rights implementation. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights influences the formation and development of national legislation. In the case that national legislation does not meet international standards, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights may encourage the state to amend its legal acts to meet convention standards.

This article examines the influence of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the development of the civil procedural law of Ukraine and the practice of applying its norms by domestic courts. The concept and essence of the precedent nature of decisions (decisions) of the European Court of Human Rights, their place in the system of so-called "judicial sources" of civil procedural law are defined. The shortcomings of the Law of Ukraine "On the implementation of decisions and application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights" are indicated, which recognizes the practice of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of law and the position of domestic courts regarding this deficiency.
 It is noted that the source of law according to the Law of Ukraine "On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights" is also the practice of the European Commission on Human Rights and its role in the procedure for considering complaints about violations of the Convention is determined.
 The directions of the influence of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights on civil proceedings are outlined, where it is concluded that a precedent can be formed on any procedural issue due to the dynamic interpretation by the specified court of the provisions of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 and its protocols . It is noted that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights generally constructs legal ideas regarding the principles of civil procedure and the right to a fair trial. On the example of a separate decision of the European Court of Human Rights, the law enforcement and regulatory influence on the results of consideration and resolution of a civil case and the development of the civil procedural law of Ukraine, respectively, are analyzed. The importance of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights for the civil justice of Ukraine is summarized. In particular, taking into account the precedent practice of the ECtHR during the consideration and resolution of civil cases will eliminate the factors that serve as the reason for the appeal to the Court and will introduce European standards of protection of human rights and freedoms into Ukrainian civil proceedings. As a result, the impact of the decisions of the ECtHR will reduce the need to appeal to an international judicial institution in search of just satisfaction, which will accelerate the protection of the rights and freedoms of the parties to a civil case within the framework of national judicial jurisdiction.

The subject of the research is criminal law rules that provide for criminal liability for hate crimes and the judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on hate crimes. The purpose of the article is to confirm or refute the hypothesis that a unified approach to the definition of the legal concept of hate speech and the limits of its application is nec-essary. This approach must be based on the legal positions of the European Court of Hu-man Rights The research methodology includes analysis and interpretation of court decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as a dialectical approach to the analysis of vari-ous points of view to the definition of extremist activity. The main results and scope of their application. The relevance of the research proposed for publication is due to the lack of uniform practice of applying the articles of the Russian Criminal Code on so-called "hate crimes" by Russian courts and the presence of signifi-cant contradictions in the positions of the European Court of Human Rights and the state position of the Russian Federation in defining key concepts in this area that are extremely important for criminal procedure and administrative activities. The paper considers scien-tific and practical attempts to define "hate crimes" in the global and regional human rights systems, basic recommendations of the UN on countering such crimes, and offers an interpretation of the term hate speech in relation to the related criminological concept of hate crime. The text provides statistical data describing the level of such crime and the practice of the ECHR in this area, mentions a list of criteria according to which "hate crimes" can be motivated by language differences, gender, sexual orientation and other characteristics, as well as criteria that distinguish hate speech from freedom of expres-sion, and suggests decriminalization of part 1 of article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. Conclusions. It is necessary to unify the concepts of "hate crimes" (and the practice of their application) in the direction of, in particular, reducing the number of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights against the Russian Federation and increasing the level of legal protection of both the individual citizen of the Russian Federation and freedom of speech and expression.

У статті розглядається значення рішень Європейського суду з прав людини у механізмі запобігання домашньому насильству. Вказується, що національне кримінальне процесуальне законодавство не було адаптовано та приведено у відповідність міжнародним правовим документам, а також позиції Європейського суду з прав людини. Зазначається, що не дивлячись на те, що в ст. 17 Закону України «Про виконання рішень та застосування практики Європейського суду з прав людини», визначено, що суди застосовують при розгляді справ Конвенцію та практику Суду як джерело права, національне законодавство не надає визначення поняттю «практика Європейського суду з прав людини», що призводить до формування різних доктринальних та практичних позицій з цього питання. Зазначене надає можливість ігнорувати окремі рішення Суду як у межах судового розгляду, так і під час законотворчої роботи. Це має наслідком різне тлумачення правових норм, а отже – прогалини у механізмі правозастосування, що дестабілізує процес правового забезпечення системи запобігання кримінальним правопорушенням. Прикладом є віднесення домашнього насильства до категорії кримінальних правопорушень, кримінальне провадження щодо яких здійснюється у формі приватного обвинувачення. Підсумовується, що рішення Європейського суду з прав людини в межах спеціально-кримінологічного запобігання кримінальним правопорушенням мають формально-юридичне значення, оскільки вони не є імперативними, часто зумовлені рішеннями, ухваленими в умовах судової дискреції та de jure є актами правозастосування та правотлумачення положень Європейської конвенції з прав людини. Водночас такі рішення утворюють апробовану платформу для удосконалення організаційно- правових заходів протидії злочинності через формування курсу розвитку кримінально-правової політики.

The article is devoted to the issues of reproductive human rights in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and their impact on the practice of law enforcement and constitutional-legal doctrine in Ukraine. It emphasizes that personal reproductive rights are an important element of the system of fundamental human rights. Judicial practice, including the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, has a significant impact on the regulation and implementation of reproductive rights. A priority area for the development of Ukrainian legislation is the study of the possibilities of using judicial practice in the fiel of protection and safeguarding reproductive rights. A key issue in this regard is the scope of the regulating influence of precedential rulings concerning reproductive rights, as reflected in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It is noted that referring to this practice is becoming a common legal practice among participants in judicial and administrative procedures. At the same time, a problem arises in applying judicial practice to relationships that are not independently regulated by law in Ukraine due to the absence of a separate legal act governing assisted reproductive technologies. It is emphasized that such a national legal act should adhere to the principles outlined in the precedential decisions of the European Court of Human Rights related to reproductive rights. The current law enforcement practice of the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates its use of a well-developed methodology for interpretation based on the consensus (legal harmonization) method, i.e., combining the interpretation of international acts and agreements with the practice of member states’ national legal systems. At the same time, the analysis of constitutional interpretations reflected in national legal systems is also important. At the level of constitutional-legal doctrine, it becomes important to form theoretical approaches to understanding the interpretative mechanisms for applying the precedent law of the European Court of Human Rights, specifically in the area of reproductive rights.

The study aimed to analyse how the Ukrainian legal system implements the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to identify problems and prospects for improving this process. The article used methods of legal analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, comparison of national legislation with the European Convention on Human Rights, analysis of the statistics of the European Court of Human Rights, research on the implementation of European Court of Human Rights decisions at the national level, hermeneutics to identify terminological gaps, analysis of the implementation of European standards in the national legal system, and deduction to identify key issues in cases against Ukraine. An analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights revealed numerous systemic human rights violations in Ukraine, particularly in the areas of conditions of detention, unlawful arrests and lengthy court proceedings. Problems with non-enforcement of court decisions and violations of the rights to liberty and dignity have been confirmed by numerous cases, such as Gongadze v. Ukraine and Kharchenko v. Ukraine. Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine following the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, in particular the limitation of the term of pre-trial detention, have reduced the number of cases of prolonged detention The study aimed to analyse how the Ukrainian legal system implements the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to identify problems and prospects for improving this process. The article used methods of legal analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, comparison of national legislation with the European Convention on Human Rights, analysis of the statistics of the European Court of Human Rights, research on the implementation of European Court of Human Rights decisions at the national level, hermeneutics to identify terminological gaps, analysis of the implementation of European standards in the national legal system, and deduction to identify key issues in cases against Ukraine. An analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights revealed numerous systemic human rights violations in Ukraine, particularly in the areas of conditions of detention, unlawful arrests and lengthy court proceedings. Problems with non-enforcement of court decisions and violations of the rights to liberty and dignity have been confirmed by numerous cases, such as Gongadze v. Ukraine and Kharchenko v. Ukraine. Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine following the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, in particular the limitation of the term of pre-trial detention, have reduced the number of cases of prolonged detention

The article explores the main problems of the application by the national courts of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of law. Analyzing the rules of the law and examining the views of the Supreme Court have highlighted the problematic issues of the obligation to apply the case law of the European Court of Human Rights to national courts as a source of law. The researchers' positions on the obligation of national courts to apply the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in cases against other states are examined and the importance of the application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is highlighted. Analyzing the views of scholars and experts, we have proposed ways to address the issues of the binding application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights by reviewing the plenary sessions of high courts. The problems of the application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights by national courts, such as the selective application of the case law of the Court, references to general principles and interpretations, ignoring the conditions of their application, absolutization of the binding position of the Court, application of the decisions of the Court by analogy, reference to the practice Court in the presence of clear and consistent provisions of national law, etc. The following ways of solving these problems are proposed: 1) revising the concept and content of the Law of Ukraine "On the implementation of decisions and application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights" and amending the legislation in order to bring it in line with the provisions of the new procedural legislation and modern ideas of theorists and practitioners about the legal nature of decisions The European Court of Human Rights; 2) preparing a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court on the application of the Convention and the case-law of the Court, which should be based on a thorough analysis of the shortcomings and peculiarities of the case-law of the national courts. The problematic issues of the application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in the absence of official translations of the Court's decisions are examined. Analyzing the views of scholars and experts, we have proposed ways to solve these problems by creating a single electronic database that will contain official translations of Court decisions in the Ukrainian language that will ensure their accessibility and dissemination.

The article has been devoted to the analysis of the nature of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of constitutional law of Ukraine. The nature of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights has been characterized depending on the following factors: state legal system, constitutional approach to the relation between national and international law, the level of bindingness of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights for public authorities. The author has concluded on the duality of nature the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, namely that, the author considers that the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights have a complicated, complex structure, combining the properties of both a right-interpreting act and a judicial precedent. According to the author, the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are intended not only to resolve the cases under trial, but also to specify and interpret the rules of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It has been established that the current Ukrainian legislation, establishing the primacy of the rule of law before the law, provides for the obligation of the judicial authorities to apply the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of law and at the same time the duty of the state to enforce the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in cases where Ukraine is the defendant. In addition, as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights shows, the judiciary itself emphasizes in its decisions the interpretative nature and the binding nature of all its decisions to be taken into account by all States parties. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine constantly uses the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights to form its own legal positions, after which they actually become a substantive element of the motivating part of the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. It has been concluded that regardless of whether or not the decision of the European Court of Human Rights has been ruled on Ukraine, it is a source of constitutional law in Ukraine.

In the article, the author highlights the issue of implementing the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights into the national legal system. It is outlined that the issue of approximation of national legislation, including court decisions, was outlined back in 1991, when Ukraine received the status of an independent state and took the European integration path of the country’s legal development. Since 1998, Ukraine has ratified a number of European conventions, among which it is worth noting: the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Convention on Human Rights. As an impetus for the approximation of European Union law and the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2006 adopted the Law of Ukraine «On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights». And, although the Romano-Germanic legal system does not provide for case law, at the same time elements of case law are traced in Ukrainian legislation. The author emphasizes in the article that the European Court of Human Rights calls its own practice precedent. In turn, judicial precedent is that the European Court, when resolving a particular case, tends to generally follow the approaches that it used earlier. At the same time, legal practice has shown significant difficulties not only with the correct understanding, but also with the application of both international documents and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The application of thе European Court of Human Rights practice should contribute to the formation of unity of judicial practice in the protection of human rights, freedoms and interests. The author also gives his own commentary on the theses put forward by legal scholars on the issue of implementing the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights into Ukrainian legislation and the procedures for approximating European legislation to national legislation. In his study, the author reveals the issue of stagnation in the national legal system not only in resolving individual cases by analogy, but also in fully applying case law. The author also believes that a reasonable consensus is needed between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and other bodies in the state.

this article is dedicated to the analysis of certain features of the position of the Authorized Person in the Affairs with European Court of Human Rights in the context of the reformation of Ukrainian legislation on public service. It is noted that a necessary condition for the effective organization and execution of public service in Ukraine is the proper differentiation of state positions into political, administrative, judicial, and patronage, as well as a clear distinction of their legal status. It is emphasized that the position of the Authorized Person in the Affairs with European Court of Human Rights in the current legislation of Ukraine is not clearly classified as a state position of a certain type. At the same time, the analysis conducted allows for the assertion that the position of the Authorized Person in the Affairs with European Court of Human Rights simultaneously has features of both political and administrative positions (in particular, positions of the civil service). It is emphasized that such ambiguity can negatively affect the effectiveness of the public service and the development of the institutional system that ensures the representation of Ukraine in the European Court of Human Rights during the consideration of cases concerning violations of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, coordinates the implementation of its decisions, and informs the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe about the progress in implementing the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. In this regard, a conclusion is made about the necessity of clearly classifying the position of the Authorized Person in the Affairs with European Court of Human Rights as a state position of a certain type, which undoubtedly requires developing balanced approaches to regulating the legal status of the Authorized Person in the Affairs with European Court of Human Rights, resolving issues related to the appointment to this position, exercising the powers of the position, and dismissal from the position, etc., which, in turn, necessitates amendments to the laws of Ukraine «On Civil Service» dated 10.12.2015 and «On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights» dated 23.02.2006.

The article deals with the ways of regarding the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine, which is relevant both in terms of the criminal procedure as a science and for the practice of law enforcement. The purpose of the article is to formulate the concept of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine. The paper justifies the opinion that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is developed and based on the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights, regardless of the country in which they were adopted (i. e. has a polyterritorial jurisdiction over states being the participants of the Convention). The article proves that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is draws upon the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights regardless of the time of adoption, i. e. it includes the decisions adopted before Ukraine ratified the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The author points out the appropriateness of classifying decisions that have acquired the status of final as «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». It is also mentioned that there is a need to include final decisions in the case (as the matter of fact), which have a decisive nature and contain a legal position in this case, into the scope of the category «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». Moreover, the article substantiates the necessity to include the decisions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights in full, i. e. not only the set forth legal positions, into the category of «case law of the European Court of Human Rights». Following the results of the study, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of criminal procedural law of Ukraine is defined as a set of decisions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights, which have entered into force and contain legal policies which either clarify or specify the provisions of the Convention as for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and relate to human and citizen’s rights and freedoms.

Introduction. Ukraine signed Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms many years ago to provide effective protection of fundamental rights for every human that stands out on its' territory. This document is interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights. Practice of this Court must be used by national courts of Ukraine to match international human rights' standards. However, according to results of statistical research, application of that legal positions by national judges aren’t correct enough. The purpose of the paper is to identify and analyze problematic issues of application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights by national courts of Ukraine. The authors also wanted to investigate the national practice of using the ECHR' legal positions and to provide recommendations to address shortcomings in such application. Results. The paper considers the issue of application of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights by the national courts of Ukraine. The legal nature of ECHR decisions' is studied. Authors are stick to the idea that judgments of ECHR aren’t classic precedent. There are authors' opinions about the problem of applying the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, which has no official translation. They think that judges need to be taught professional English and French. So that they will be able to understand original text of judgments correct. There is also a thought about necessity of creating special database with Ukrainian translation of some judgments. Authors have also revealed problematic aspects of the application such as: erroneous, manipulative, formal references. There are some decisions of Ukrainian courts that have been analyzed by the authors. Erroneous references to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in such cases have been determined. Authors stated that the reason of those defects is insufficient awareness of judges about the specifics of application legal positions of ECHR. Conclusion. According to the results of the work, the importance of education and training of future judges is stated. In addition, authors emphasized on necessity of further observations of this question.

The scientific article examines the activities of the European Court of Human Rights and identifies the significance of the relevant case law of the European Court for the case law of Ukraine. It is noted, that one of the issues, studied within the topic, is the sources and legal framework, which is especially relevant in the adoption of the Law of Ukraine «On Enforcement of Decisions and Application of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights», according to which courts use the Agreement and case law as a legal source in cases. The activity of the European Court of Human Rights, the role and impact on the judicial system of Ukraine are analyzed, the relevant examples are given. It is concluded, that the implementation of international human rights law into Ukrainian law is a complex procedure that requires special doctrinal consideration, as today Ukrainian citizens are among the most active complainants to the European Court of Human Rights, which indicates a fairly high insecurity by national legal mechanisms. In order to increase the credibility of the judiciary, courts should take into account the European experience, decisions and observations of the Court in their work. The Court's case law is said to play an important role in the judicial reform process as it approaches the European legal framework for human rights standards in Europe. The current law cannot fully protect a person or build justice if it is not applied properly. Based on existing ECtHR rulings, judges can accurately understand the rule of law and apply it properly, which will help improve human rights, accurate understanding and implementation of the Agreement on Ukraine. Based on the study, it was concluded, that it is necessary and appropriate to implement the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as in this way it is possible to ensure the protection and defense of human and civil rights and freedoms

Guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950, the right to respect for private and family life for those sentenced to life imprisonment, in terms of its implementation and scope, differs from this right for free individuals. But it is undeniable that those sentenced to life imprisonment are not deprived of this right in full. This is consistently emphasized in its practice by the European Court of Human Rights. In addition to private and family life being a natural need of every individual, its realization, particularly in forms such as maintaining and supporting connections with the outside world, is a means of re-socialization for individuals undergoing punishment in the form of life imprisonment. The benchmark for the development of Ukrainian legislation and law enforcement practice is the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. Therefore, the legal positions of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the right to respect for private and family life for those sentenced to life imprisonment should be studied and generalized. The precondition for the further development of any scientific direction is the comprehension of what has already been done by previous researchers. The conducted research has shown that Ukrainian scientific literature has addressed the legal positions of the European Court of Human Rights regarding various aspects of the right to respect for the private and family life of prisoners, broadly understood (including those in custody, sentenced to a certain term of imprisonment, and those sentenced to life imprisonment): 1) the conclusion that the restriction of the right to respect for private and family life for persons deprived of liberty, provided it is lawful, is not incompatible with the Convention; 2) the conditions/criteria for the legality of such restriction, implemented by national authorities; 3) the systematic identification of the main types of violations of the right to respect for family life recorded in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights regarding convicted persons and persons in custody; 4) special protection of correspondence between an inmate and their lawyer; 5) differentiation of the spheres of application of Article 8 with other articles of the Convention, primarily Article 3; 6) determination of the main trend in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights «in the penitentiary sphere and in the criminal justice system as a whole,» which consists of constantly raising the standards of human rights by the Court; 7) ignoring the need for an individual approach in applying restrictions on the rights of persons deprived of liberty. The analysis of the existing body of scientific literature shows that existing studies are mainly based on the analysis of the European Court of Human Rights practice regarding foreign states and, with one exception, do not distinguish the legal status of those sentenced to life imprisonment among other deprived individuals. Since the publication of the analyzed monographs, 9–10 years have passed. During this time, the European Court of Human Rights has developed a significant body of practice regarding Ukraine, taking into account the Ukrainian context. Therefore, the analysis of the European Court of Human Rights decisions specifically regarding Ukraine should be a priority. Additionally, they should be analyzed in full. Such an analysis will allow, in conjunction with demonstrating the Convention’s standards regarding the right of those sentenced to life imprisonment to respect for their private and family life, to show the systematic and partial problems in this area identified by the European Court of Human Rights in its practice regarding Ukraine.

Regional human rights courts like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and the African Court of Human and People's Rights (ACtHPR) have become popular sites of mobilization for victims and activists who seek justice when justice fails at home. Besides being platforms for individual remedy, human rights courts increasingly shape social norms and state policy within countries, making them attractive avenues for rights advocates to develop new norms or to push domestic authorities to reform legislation. The judges of these courts can decide, for example, whether same-sex couples have a right to be married, if prisoners have the right to vote or receive HIV/AIDS treatment, or when a state can deport illegal immigrants to a country where they will likely be tortured. As these courts pass their judgments, they often find themselves in conflict with states that are violating human rights of marginalized groups on a large scale and are unwilling to implement international rulings. Although international human rights courts have become increasingly popular venues among victims and activists who seek justice when justice fails at home, we are only beginning to understand how activists play roles in shaping the development of regional human rights courts' case law—the body of judgments that shapes how judges will make their decisions in the future. We now have plenty of international relations and international legal research on the interactions between states and international courts: how judges in these courts wrestle between deferring to the interests of member state governments whose actions are on trial and sticking closely to the conventions' fundamental yet evolving principles (Alter et al., 2019; Helfer & Voeten, 2014). As some states begin to resist international courts' authority, scholars have begun to examine the dynamics of this backlash (Hillebrecht, 2022; Madsen et al., 2018; Sandholtz et al., 2018). Recent studies have also demonstrated that human rights advocates—whether NGOs or individual lawyers—have a significant impact on shaping the jurisprudence of international courts and the impact judgments have in concrete locations (Kahraman, 2018; Sundstrom, 2014; van der Vet, 2012; Kurban, 2020; Conant, 2018; Harms, 2021; Cichowski, 2016; Hodson, 2011; Haddad, 2018). Meanwhile, these advocates themselves have been subject to repression and stigmatization by governments as part of the backlash phenomenon. Without an adequate understanding of the factors shaping activists' engagement with international courts, we risk undervaluing their strategic impact on the expansion of case law, the human rights protection of marginalized groups who cannot find remedies at home, and the domestic implementation of these judgments in an age of state backlash. In this section, we summarize the three papers contained in this symposium and their original contributions to these themes. Over the last decade, dozens of countries have erected legal barriers or started vilifying campaigns to stymie the work of NGOs (Buyse, 2018; Chaudhry, 2022). One tactic in this toolkit is the enactment of burdensome regulation on NGOs that receive funds from foreign donors as they allegedly promote foreign agendas (Christensen & Weinstein, 2013; Dupuy et al., 2021). States that frequently abuse human rights are especially prone to target NGOs that engage in strategic litigation (Hillebrecht, 2019). Most NGOs depend on foreign funding, and NGOs that litigate international cases fall disproportionately in this category, but do funders affect the selection of cases? In “Foreign Agents or Agents of Justice? Private Foundations, NGO Backlash, and International Human Rights Litigation,” Heidi Haddad and Lisa Sundstrom examine the extent to which Western donors, particularly private foundations, have encouraged NGOs in Europe to litigate at the ECtHR as a human rights advocacy strategy. They examine overall patterns of donor funding and NGO litigation records, and look in more detail at the case of Russian NGOs' foreign funding and litigation records. The analysis is extremely timely, as the Russian government's criminalization of independent civil society actors, especially in the human rights field, and their accusation that foreign funding turns NGOs into “foreign agents” have been crucial elements of the Russian regime's autocratization. This claim has also provided fuel for Russia's disenchantment with the ECtHR in recent years, contributing to the assessment of many observers that Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine was the last straw in an inevitable collision course leading to its exit from the Council of Europe. Haddad and Sundstrom debunk the idea that foreign donors are pushing NGOs toward strategies of human rights litigation. Instead, they argue, there is more evidence that NGOs themselves promoted the mechanism of international litigation as a strategy that donors later adopted. This article is a poignant reminder of the advocacy tools that Russian human rights activists and citizens have lost as a result of their government's departure from the Council of Europe, including ECtHR jurisdiction. Yet it also provides insight into the likely roles of foreign donors in other country cases where NGOs are using international court litigation as a human rights advocacy strategy, which is often a target of the ire of national governments, as explored in the next article in the symposium. When states attack human rights NGOs within their borders and/or international human rights courts themselves, how does this affect the willingness of those NGOs to take cases to international courts, and the ways in which they do so? De Silva and Plagis ask this question in their article about state backlash against NGOs in the case of Tanzania and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. A fascinating empirical question they pose is: does state backlash against NGOs increase NGO litigation at international courts (to contest state repression at those courts and use international mechanisms when domestic ones are not available), roughly in line with Keck and Sikkink's famous “boomerang pattern” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998), or decrease it due to heightened fear and restricted NGO capabilities that state repression creates? Employing a process-tracing analysis of NGOs' involvement in three cases before the African Court at different stages of the Tanzanian government's backlash against the Court, De Silva and Plagis find that “two-level backlash” by states can result in both phenomena, either promoting or deterring NGO legal mobilization at international human rights courts, depending on certain conditions. The three selected cases concerning the death penalty, the rights of persons with albinism, and the rights of pregnant schoolgirls and mothers, which took place at different time periods, demonstrate a number of patterns of state backlash interacting with NGO strategies. The authors find that domestic-level state backlash deterred domestic NGOs from partnering with international NGOs in litigation, but that such backlash, when it repressed domestic political and legal mobilization opportunities, actually encouraged both Tanzanian and international NGOs to turn to the African Court more frequently to seek remedies. International-level backlash in turn only deterred NGOs from international litigation when such backlash consisted of state efforts to restrict NGOs' ability to engage in litigation, and not when the international backlash was in the form of routine noncompliance with African Court rulings. Importantly, the authors find that NGO responses to state backlash were significantly shaped by their degree of legal consciousness and expertise with the rules, proceedings, and workings of the African Court. Those NGOs with less knowledge and experience were more likely to back away from engaging with the Court under the pressure of state backlash. De Silva and Plagis conclude that “NGOs' persistent human rights advocacy in the face of state backlash is a double-edged sword,” in the sense that they may not be deterred by state backlash initially, but there is a danger that their continued determination to engage in international litigation could prompt governments to engage in even more severe forms of backlash, with critical impacts on international courts and already vulnerable human rights defenders. Rights advocates have a growing menu of institutions and courts available to them. How do activists choose at which institution to lodge their cases in a world where legal remedies have diversified, or as some have argued, fragmented (Koskenniemi & Leino, 2002)? In “What Makes an International Institution Work for Labor Activists? Shaping International Law through Strategic Litigation,” Filiz Kahraman goes beyond the tendency of legal mobilization studies to only examine how activists interact with a single court or institution. Instead, Kahraman opens up how rights advocates imagine which institution is most receptive to their claims. Drawing on a comparative interview study of British and Turkish trade union activists and their legal mobilization campaigns at international courts and quasi-judicial institutions like the International Labor Organization (ILO), Kahraman examines how activists first probe and then strategically identify which court or international institution is most susceptible to their primary goals of influencing structural reforms and setting new norms. Through this probing process—or dynamic signaling game between courts and litigants—activists push a court's jurisprudence and case law into new issue areas. For instance, at the ECtHR, Turkish trade unionists challenged domestic courts' ruling that public sector workers did not have the right to establish unions, even though the ECtHR had no established case law on labor rights in 1990s. They won the case, with the ECtHR finding that Turkey violated the right of public sector workers to unionize. These cases not only had an impact within Turkey, but over the next decades, similar cases brought by British unionists would spin off the early precedent set by the Turkish legal mobilization efforts. Kahraman argues that they ultimately pushed the ECtHR to recognize the basic trade union rights as fundamental human rights. Kahraman sheds light on the often hidden strategies behind international litigation. Activists litigate not just for the immediate impact on the current case they work on, but how they envision that all the cases they work on may shape norms and domestic structural reforms further in the future. Whether an institution is perceptive of claims lies in the eye of the beholder. Kahraman finds that besides targeting institutions with high compliance rates, they also take cases to institutions with low rates of compliance, especially “if these institutions have extensive judicial authority to create new international norms.” So, it is not the de jure protection set by an international courts, but rather how activists perceive the juridical responsiveness and judicial authority of courts—or, how judges adopt either an activist approach or restraint in response to incoming cases and how willing states are to implement cases of a court, respectively—that determines why activists select certain courts or quasi-judicial institutions (like the ILO). Kahraman gives us new tools to interpret how activists perceive authority and receptiveness and respond to opportunities. Rather than static external legal remedies, courts and quasi-judicial institutions are opportunity structures that are malleable to the strategic vision of the activist or litigant. The articles in this symposium together reveal a number of key overlapping insights. At the broadest level, they demonstrate that activists' behaviors and strategies influence international courts' jurisprudence, politics within states, and the human rights outcomes of everyday citizens—and these influences have often been hidden in our existing canon of research on international courts. In addition, all of these articles show that, while activists may face challenges in their efforts, often including significant backlash from their home state governments, they also continue to retain significant agency through their creative efforts to develop legal strategies and circumvent state repression. Activists perennially innovate: sparking the ideas that inspire donors who fund them; calculating how to continue their litigation work when government actors threaten them; and taking risks in litigation to push courts to expand how they define human rights. However, along with these uplifting conclusions, there are worrying patterns that demand future research. States are increasingly pushing back against the powers of international courts to bind them to costly measures, and as this symposium has shown, national governments often point to activists as contributors to this “problem” of invasive international human rights standards. A growing body of research has tracked how human rights defenders of all kinds globally are under threat from actors like governments and corporations who disagree with their contentious actions. We need more studies that gather comprehensive data and systematically track these threats, specifically with regard to activists who engage in international human rights litigation. We suspect that such activists are likely disproportionately targeted due to the international visibility of their complaints. We also desperately need research into possible innovative responses to these threats to activists—responses from activists, funders, governments of countries that support human rights, and international courts themselves. Freek van der Vet is a University Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki and the principal investigator of the Toxic Crimes Project. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. She is the director of the ActinCourts network at UBC and conducts research on legal mobilization by Russian activists.