The Compatibility of the EU-Turkey Statement with EU Law and International Human Rights Law

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.

The article presents a comprehensive study of the theoretical and legal foundations and practical mechanisms for implementing international human rights standards within the national legal system of Ukraine, which is of particular relevance under martial law and in the context of European integration processes. The authors examine the issues of harmonizing national legislation with international obligations defined by international treaties, conventions, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The research employs a wide range of general scientific and special legal methods, including historical-legal, comparative-legal, system-structural analysis, formal-legal, and legal modeling methods, ensuring the complexity and scientific validity of the study. For the first time in Ukrainian legal scholarship, a systematic approach is proposed to analyze the implementation of international human rights standards, taking into account the dynamics of Ukraine’s legal system during armed conflict and current integration challenges. The authors develop an original periodization of the development of judicial practice in applying international standards, which allows for tracing the evolution of national courts’ legal positions. It is proven that the constitutional and legal foundations for the realization of international standards create a basis for stable legal integration; however, numerous practical problems persist – fragmentary implementation, formalism in law enforcement, the absence of a unified approach to interpreting international instruments, and difficulties in adapting human rights protection mechanisms under martial law conditions. It is noted that as of today, only about 35% of ratified international human rights treaties have been fully integrated into national legislation. In this regard, the authors substantiate the need to develop a National Strategy for the Implementation of International Human Rights Standards, establish a Unified Coordination Center, and adopt a Framework Law to enhance the implementation process. The results obtained have theoretical and practical significance and may be used in law-making, judicial practice, educational processes, and further scientific research in the field of international and constitutional law.

Everything about human right is inalienable void of violation from the human race. It is therefore that responsibility of the international community in ensuring the effective preservation and respect of these rights without any threat of violations. In ensuring its recognition and implementation, international standards have been established where there is the need of States parties to these international human right treaties in ensuring its incorporation in its various domestic legislations. The content and specific features of the introduction of international human rights standards into national legislation have been analyzed in the article. The methodological basis of research is a set of general scientific and special methods, in particular, dialectical, historical-legal, epistemological, comparative-legal. International standards for the protection of human rights have been defined as principles and norms enshrined in international regulatory legal acts that define fundamental human rights and freedoms, the obligation of the State to respect them, to assist in their realization, preservation and protection against unlawful encroachments, and to establish liability for their violations and methods of protection. It has been clarified that the procedure of implementation of international human rights standards into national legislation includes the following stages: (i) recognition of human rights by the State and their enshrinement in national legislation; (ii) institutionalization of the standard of human rights protection; (iii) bringing the current legislation in line with the international human rights standard and interpreting the latter; (iv) establishment of measures and means of protection and defense of human rights; (v) determining the procedure for the realization of the enshrined right; (vi) control over the observance of the international human rights standard.

The novelty lies in the author's assessment of the impact of international human rights standards and a fair trial procedure not only on the criminal justice itself, but also on the entire system of relations between the state and the individual, as well as in a critical analysis of clauses found in the literature on possible restrictions on the application of the European Court's practice on human rights in Russia. The aim of the work is to substantiate the unconditionally positive influence of international human rights and justice standards on the Russian criminal justice system and the relationship between the state, the individual and society. The objective is to demonstrate, using examples from the literature and practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the undoubtedly positive impact of the application in Russia of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on Russian criminal justice and on all practical jurisprudence in Russia. The article uses the methods of system analysis and synthesis, comparative legal and historical methods. As a result, the author's conclusions about the inadmissibility and inappropriateness of limiting the operation on the territory of Russia of international human rights standards and fair trial procedures expressed in the European Convention and court decisions of the European Court have been substantiated. In conclusion, these brief conclusions are formulated.

The study is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual foundations, main features and practical aspects of the functioning of international human rights standards in the modern globalized world. The relevance of the work is due to the need to form a holistic theoretical approach to understanding the nature of international standards in the context of the dynamic development of international law and the adoption of over 300 international documents in the field of human rights.The work analyzes the evolution of conceptual approaches to defining international human rights standards, starting from the 2012 Declaration on the Rule of Law and UN General Assembly Resolution No. 41/120. Particular attention is paid to the study of the main characteristics of the standards: establishing the content and scope of human rights, their minimal nature as the “least acceptable compromise”, the obligation of compliance and model for national legal systems.A significant part of the study is devoted to the analysis of the paradox of the universality of international standards, which consists in combining their global nature with the possibility of various culturally specific interpretations. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights on the application of the doctrine of “margin of appreciation” and the approaches of different civilizations to the interpretation of fundamental rights and freedoms is considered. The need for a dialogue of civilizations to form a “consensus” language in the field of human rights is substantiated.Special attention is paid to practical aspects of the implementation of international standards, in particular the problem of establishing a fair balance between individual and collective interests. The process of standardization of the social significance of formally distinct legal phenomena and the dialectics of essence and form in the application of international standards are analyzed. The specifics of the maximum abstractness of the terminology of international standards and the features of their official interpretation in specific historical conditions are considered.The study demonstrates the complex and multidimensional nature of international human rights standards, their dynamic nature and ability to adapt to changing social needs, while maintaining the fundamental focus on protecting human dignity and ensuring justice on a global scale.

The practice of conscientious objection often arises in the area of individuals refusing to fulfil compulsory military service requirements and is based on the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion as protected by national, international and regional human rights law. The practice of conscientious objection also arises in the field of health care, when individual health care providers or institutions refuse to provide certain health services based on religious, moral or philosophical objections. The use of conscientious objection by health care providers to reproductive health care services, including abortion, contraceptive prescriptions, and prenatal tests, among other services is a growing phenomena throughout Europe. However, despite recent progress from the European Court of Human Rights on this issue (RR v. Poland, 2011), countries and international and regional bodies generally have failed to comprehensively and effectively regulate this practice, denying many women reproductive health care services they are legally entitled to receive. The Italian Ministry of Health reported that in 2008 nearly 70% of gynaecologists in Italy refuse to perform abortions on moral grounds. It found that between 2003 and 2007 the number of gynaecologists invoking conscientious objection in their refusal to perform an abortion rose from 58.7 percent to 69.2 percent. Italy is not alone in Europe, for example, the practice is prevalent in Poland, Slovakia, and is growing in the United Kingdom. This article outlines the international and regional human rights obligations and medical standards on this issue, and highlights some of the main gaps in these standards. It illustrates how European countries regulate or fail to regulate conscientious objection and how these regulations are working in practice, including examples of jurisprudence from national level courts and cases before the European Court of Human Rights. Finally, the article will provide recommendations to national governments as well as to international and regional bodies on how to regulate conscientious objection so as to both respect the practice of conscientious objection while protecting individual's right to reproductive health care.

The article is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of the legal nature of the human right to a fair trial, the study of mechanisms for its normative and legal enforcement, and the effectiveness of its implementation through the lens of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. Particular attention is paid to the systematic interpretation of this right in the context of international human rights standards and its correlation with the national legal systems of the states – parties to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The article conducts a doctrinal study of the right to a fair trial, defines its place in the hierarchy of fundamental human rights, and substantiates its absolute nature in the context of the modern concept of human rights. This right is one of the key elements of the rule of law, guaranteeing access to effective judicial protection and ensuring a balance between public and private interests in a legal state. Significant attention is given to analyzing the role of the judiciary as the primary guarantor of the realization of this right, while judicial protection is considered not only as an instrument for restoring violated rights but also as a structural element of the justice mechanism, which determines the democratic principles of the functioning of the state apparatus. The judicial system is obliged to ensure compliance with a set of procedural guarantees that prevent arbitrary restrictions on a person’s rights to access justice and to have their case reviewed objectively. The study identifies the main structural components of the right to a fair trial, including:the right to have a case heard by an independent, impartial, and competent court; the right to equality of arms and adversarial proceedings; the right to legal certainty in judicial decision-making; the right to the openness and publicity of the judicial process; the right to have a case considered within a reasonable time, as an essential element of effective justice. It is noted that access to justice is a prerequisite for the realization of the right to a fair trial. Access to justice is proposed to be understood as a real opportunity, guaranteed by the state and ensured by effective legal mechanisms, for a person to appeal to the court to protect their rights, freedoms, or legitimate interests. It is argued that the primary task of the European Court of Human Rights in every case is to assess the overall fairness of the proceedings. Compliance with the requirements of a fair trial should be considered in each case, taking into account the development of the entire proceedings, rather than based on the isolated examination of one specific aspect or a particular instance. The article also examines the issue of contradictions between national judicial systems and the standards of the European Court of Human Rights, which sometimes necessitate the revision of legal norms at the level of domestic legislation. The case law of the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates that a number of states face difficulties in implementing the Court’s decisions, which negatively affects public trust in the judiciary. It is important to emphasize that the institutional capacity of national judicial systems must correspond to European standards of justice, ensuring that citizens have a real opportunity for effective protection of their rights. Failure to meet such standards can lead to systemic problems in the field of justice and an increased number of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights. In the context of international law, the need for harmonization of national legislation with the requirements of the Convention is emphasized, which would contribute to increasing the effectiveness of the realization of the right to a fair trial. This issue is particularly relevant for countries undergoing judicial system reforms and striving to strengthen its independence. The conclusions of the article emphasize that the human rights protection role of the European Court of Human Rights is a key factor in ensuring legal certainty in judicial practice. The enforcement of its decisions is mandatory for the member states of the Convention, and their disregard may have negative consequences for a country’s international legal reputation. Keywords: effectiveness, legal mechanisms, European court of human rights, fair trial, justice, judicial practice, convention, human rights, access to justice, judiciary, judicial independence, impartiality, equality of arms, adversarial proceedings, legal certainty.

In recent years, the relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law has become increasingly controversial. Human rights lawyers and activists have sought to apply human rights norms to military conduct in international and internal conflicts, and during belligerent occupations. With varying degrees of success, complainants have brought their cases before international tribunals such as the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission and Court, and to national courts able to apply international human rights standards. To a large extent, this has simply been because forums exist to hear human rights claims, whereas they do not for individuals alleging violations of international humanitarian law. 1 However, human rights norms have also been seen as more restrictive; as placing greater constraints on States? freedom to conduct hostilities, preventively detain and administer occupied territories. For this reason, governments have largely resisted attempts to extend the reach of international human rights law into areas traditionally governed by international humanitarian law.

This article examines the legal mechanisms for preventing torture in pre-trial detention facilities, focusing on both international and national standards for protecting the rights of suspects. The study analyzes the legal framework established by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Special attention is paid to landmark cases such as Garumov v. Ukraine and Beketov v. Ukraine, which highlight systemic issues related to inhuman and degrading treatment in Ukrainian detention centers. Additionally, the ruling in Cyprus v. Turkey is examined as a precedent for state responsibility in ensuring proper detention conditions and effective investigations of ill-treatment. The research also incorporates recommendations from the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. These bodies have repeatedly expressed concern over the conditions of detention in Ukraine, the lack of independent investigative mechanisms for torture complaints, and limited access to legal and medical assistance for detainees. Their reports emphasize the urgent need for legal and institutional reforms to bring Ukraine’s human rights practices in line with international standards. The article identifies several key issues preventing effective prevention and prosecution of torture in detention facilities. These include overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, insufficient judicial oversight, and inadequate state response to allegations of torture. One of the most pressing concerns is the absence of an independent body responsible for investigating complaints against law enforcement officers, which leads to a culture of impunity. Furthermore, the lack of systematic monitoring and access to independent medical examinations exacerbates the vulnerability of detainees. To address these challenges, the article proposes several urgent measures: the establishment of an independent investigative mechanism for torture complaints, improvement of detention conditions, ensuring immediate access to legal and medical assistance, strengthening accountability for law enforcement officers involved in ill-treatment, and expanding legal education programs on human rights protection. Implementing these measures would significantly enhance Ukraine’s compliance with international human rights standards and reduce the occurrence of torture in pre-trial detention facilities. Key words: torture, pre-trial detention, suspect rights, European Court of Human Rights, international standards, human rights mechanisms.

Normative Consensus and Contentious Practice: Challenges to Universalism in International Human Rights Courts Courtney Hillebrecht (bio) I. INTRODUCTION In 2015 the Russian Constitutional Court announced that it would review all of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings against Russia for their constitutionality.1 This decision, which both the Duma and the Kremlin supported, underscored a fundamental disagreement between Russia and the ECHR about both the substance of human rights norms and the ways in which disagreements about human rights can and should be resolved. Russia has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1996 and agreed to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ECHR in 1998. Russian citizens regularly seek recourse at the ECHR and Russia even complies with many of the Court’s demands to pay financial reparations to victims. And yet, Russia’s prolonged tensions with the ECHR are textbook examples of the [End Page 190] persistent, unresolved disputes at the center of the promotion and adjudication of universal human rights. Russia’s relationship with the ECHR suggests that underneath the façade of the institutionalization and judicialization of human rights remain fundamental divides about which rights “count,” and if and how those divides should be bridged. Simply engineering a different court or judicial process cannot ameliorate Russia’s contentious relationship with the ECHR. Instead, as we can learn from Reza Afshari’s long history of grappling with these inconsistencies in the international human rights regime, the problem runs much deeper than institutional design; they cannot be easily resolved. In his 2007 Human Rights Quarterly article titled “On Historiography of Human Rights,” Afshari begins with an observation about a related fundamental inconsistency in the historiography of the international human rights regime. He writes: One of the main issues that the current historiography has to grapple with is the apparent disparity between the often-celebrated normative global achievements in codifying human rights values among the UN member states and the often-lamented failures to enforce them. . . . I argue that the link should not be seen as mechanical or procedural. Weaknesses so obviously apparent in the enforcement process signify the lack of vigor in the normative consensus; the vim and vigor by which the face was adorned by high-flying colors might in fact have masked a frail body.2 This pattern of inconsistency is visible across a wide range of issue areas, from women’s rights to economic justice, and in diverse political contexts, from Iran to the United States. Examining the disjuncture between “often-celebrated” international human rights judicial instruments and their “often-lamented” enforcement and cooperation failures can give scholars and practitioners alike a clear view of the tensions that Afshari describes. II. UNVEILING THE DIVISIONS IN THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS JUSTICE REGIME As Afshari reminds us, high levels of state membership and participation in international human rights and criminal tribunals sometimes mask deep divisions among their members over both the meaning of human rights and their understanding of how human rights disputes should be resolved. This is, in essence, illustrative of variations in states’ levels of commitment to [End Page 191] international human rights institutions, as well as the basic norms under-girding them. As part of an in-progress book project, I examine four extreme manifestations of these variations in states’ normative and political commitments to international human rights tribunals: 1) member states’ withdrawing, or threatening to withdraw, from the courts; 2) member states and political elites’ undermining and usurping legal cases; 3) stakeholders’ imposing financial restrictions on the tribunals; and 4) both members and non-members’ creating alternatives to the tribunals. In each of these circumstances, while contenders are calling into question the form and function of the tribunals, they are also casting doubt on the underlying norms themselves. For example, Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012 and the Organization of American States in 2017 cannot simply be dismissed as the consequences of a state’s displeasure with the international human rights system.3 Instead, it calls into question the principles of universality, compulsory jurisdiction, and the ability of international human rights laws and norms to protect individuals’ rights when the going gets...

It is indicated that the international system of human rights protection consists of several interrelated elements: norms-principles that form the basis of this field; specific substantive legal norms; procedural norms, the importance of which is constantly growing, because they regulate the procedure for ensuring the protection of individual rights; as well as institutional mechanisms for the international protection of human rights. The article examines the theoretical foundations of the formation and functioning of international human rights standards, as well as their specialized subsystem in the sphere of justice. The main doctrinal approaches to defining the concept of international human rights standards are analyzed, in particular the concepts of P. Rabinovich, M. Khavronyuk, P. Pustorino, V. Reisman, S. Verlanov and B. Kofman. It has been established that international standards are normative guidelines enshrined in international legal documents of the universal and regional levels, which establish the minimum permissible level of human rights protection and impose corresponding obligations on states. The essential features of international standards have been determined: normative enshrined in acts of a mandatory or recommendatory nature; model character as a model for national legislation; the presence of institutional mechanisms of control and protection; preservation of freedom of discretion by states in practical application. The system of international standards in the field of justice has been studied, which includes basic standards (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms), special standards (Basic Principles of the Independence of the UN Judiciary, European Charter on the Status of Judges), the practice of the European Court of Human Rights and recommendatory acts of the Council of Europe. It is substantiated that the key elements of justice standards are the independence and impartiality of judges, the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time, and ensuring real access to court. The conclusion is made about the importance of implementing international standards for the formation of an effective judicial system and strengthening the rule of law in Ukraine.

The intersection of International Human Rights Law and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) highlights a critical dimension of globalization that affects global business practices and human rights protections. As multinational corporations expand their operations across borders, the impact of their activities on human rights becomes increasingly significant. Ensuring that FDI respects and upholds international human rights standards is crucial for fostering ethical and sustainable development. Economic globalization refers to the increasing integration and interdependence of national economies through the cross-border exchange of goods, services, information, and capital. FDI plays a central role in this process as a critical mechanism for international capital flow. FDI occurs when a firm from one country establishes or expands business operations in another, influencing the host country's economic development, trade, and employment. FDI fosters economic growth by enhancing technology transfer, improving management practices, and increasing competition. However, it also raises concerns over potential labor exploitation, environmental degradation, and erosion of local industries. The relationship between FDI and globalization highlights the opportunities and challenges countries face as they become more interconnected in the global economy. Policymakers aim to balance attracting FDI while protecting domestic interests and promoting sustainable and inclusive growth. This paper examines the intersection of Foreign Direct Investment FDI and international human rights law, focusing on developing economies. It highlights the benefits of FDI in fostering economic growth, technology transfer, and employment while addressing concerns over labor exploitation and environmental degradation. The study explores how international legal frameworks, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, can help mitigate these risks, offering strategies for aligning FDI with human rights standards in developing countries. This study is significant as it provides insight into how developing countries can benefit from FDI without compromising their commitment to human rights protections, a critical balance in the era of economic globalization. This study will examine these problems with specific reference to the developing countries. 1) The influx of FDI either improves human rights standards or exacerbates human rights violations in developing economies. 2) International human rights standards legally bind MNCs, who are held accountable when violations occur in host countries. 3) Economic globalization has facilitated stronger human rights protections but also created challenges for enforcement in developing countries. 4) Institutions like the IMF and World Bank ensure that their policies promote FDI while respecting human rights standards, and these measures are adequate to varying degrees. 5) Developing countries can adopt specific strategies or legal frameworks to ensure that FDI aligns with human rights obligations. 6) Current international legal instruments, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, are adequate in addressing human rights violations linked to FDI.

With the growing application of artificial intelligence (AI) in governance processes including in content regulation and the monitoring of freedom of expression emerging challenges have arisen in the domain of public law and human rights. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the increasing deployment of intelligent technologies in cyberspace governance, particularly through algorithmic filtering, automated identification of "harmful" content, and surveillance of social media platforms, has raised fundamental questions regarding the compatibility of these tools with the principle of freedom of expression and the legal obligations arising therefrom. The principal research question addressed in this study is: What legal challenges does the use of AI technologies in the regulation of freedom of expression pose in Iran, and to what extent are such practices consistent with international human rights standards. The findings indicate that AI implementation in Iran primarily serves a control-oriented function. The absence of transparent legal frameworks, fair trial guarantees, and effective judicial oversight has resulted in serious threats to the right to freedom of expression. Moreover, the lack of clear criteria for the design and deployment of algorithms has undermined public trust and led to violations of human rights standards. This study adopts a qualitative methodology based on documentary and comparative legal analysis. It examines the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, interpretations by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, domestic Iranian regulations, and technology-related policies governing cyberspace. Additionally, by utilizing AI-based tools such as network analysis and natural language processing models, the functionality and behavior of content-restricting algorithms are critically assessed.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a judicial arm of the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg, France, is the most popular court in Russia today.1 In this article, I explore how ordinary people, government officials, and judges in Russia interact with this supranational human rights tribunal. Since March 30, 1998, Russia has recognized both the compulsory jurisdiction of this transnational court and the right of individuals to sue Russia in this court for violations of the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.2 What violations did Russia commit in the past decade, as identified by the ECtHR? How does the process of transmitting the meaning of ECtHR judgments to Russian authorities work? How do Russia's courts respond to ECtHR interpretations of the 1950 convention and why? Do Russian judges read and draw on these decisions, or do they ignore or defy the decisions of the ECtHR? By addressing these questions, we can attempt to probe the dynamics of how law works or fails to work on the ground, as well as whether and how transnational legal institutions make a difference in societies in which officials and judges fail to uphold even the most basic principles of rule of law.3The observance of international human rights standards in nondemocracies like Russia is poor. However, this does not mean that we should not study what government officials and judges in nondemocratic regimes are actually doing when they face criticism coming from international legal institutions. What responses, if any, do key domestic actors have to the criticism of international institutions? Does this criticism makes a difference in their behavior? Human rights activists tend to portray Russia's responses as noncompliance, somewhere between outright defiance and quiet ignorance.4 Many Russian government officials reply that this defiance is justified. They argue that the European community uses the ECtHR as a baton to monitor the implementation of the European Convention of Human Rights in Russia.5 To them, every loss in the Strasbourg court is a political scandal, be it the embarrassment over nonpayment of the meager 500-ruble child-care subsidy to mothers in the Voronezh Region or the major cover-up of large-scale human rights violations in Chechnya. Most ECtHR judgments the key claim made by Vladimir Putin: that his regime brought law, order, and prosperity to Russia. The intensity of this political scandal will only escalate in the near future, largely because the ECtHR will hear more and more politically salient cases, including ones that involve torture and disappearances in Chechnya, YUKOSrelated cases, and the large-scale deportations of Georgian citizens, among others. Russia's human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, and his colleagues scolded Russian officials for developing a paranoia that the only wish of the rest of the world is to bite, destroy Russia.6 Not surprisingly, some of these officials began suggesting that only public enemies and whiners-plunderers of the federal budget go to the Strasbourg court, a tribunal that is seen either as plotting against Russia or as a biased, slow, ineffective court.7The Kremlin today has made it a priority to stem the flow of potential complaints to the ECtHR and to do something about the complaints that have already been received by the court. Indeed, this priority appears to be the key rationale for the Russian Parliament's failure during Vladimir Putin's presidency to ratify the fourteenth protocol to the 1950 convention, a reform that would speed up the handling of cases by the Strasbourg court and result in more judgments against Russia.8 Putin's successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, is worried about the impact of this transnational litigation. He appears to realize that never-ending losses in the Strasbourg court may undermine the legitimacy of the national position in the eyes of domestic constituents, something that he cannot afford in a time of deepening economic crisis. …

The article examines the content, legal nature, and significance of the principle of judicial impartiality, which is an essential component of the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 §1 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, with a particular focus on the criminal procedural aspect. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the approaches developed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding the interpretation of judicial impartiality, highlighting its specific application through the lens of subjective and objective criteria. Particular attention is paid to the relevant case law of the ECHR: the authors compare cases where the Court found a violation of judicial impartiality with those where no violations were established. This allowed identifying typical factors indicating judicial bias and clarifying the permissible limits of judges’ behavior under the Convention. Furthermore, the authors thoroughly examine the national aspect of implementing the principle of judicial impartiality in Ukraine, including the analysis of the legal framework and practical application of the institution of judicial disqualification provided by Ukrainian criminal procedural law. Based on an analysis of the Supreme Court’s decisions, the article demonstrates the level of compliance of national judicial practice with standards developed by the ECHR and highlights key practical problems arising during the implementation of procedural guarantees of impartiality. In conclusion, the authors provide specific recommendations for improving legislation and judicial practice in Ukraine to ensure more effective safeguarding of the right to an impartial tribunal in criminal proceedings, consistent with international human rights standards. The authors further emphasize the importance of a systematic approach to improving the institution of judicial impartiality in Ukraine, in particular, the need to improve legislative initiatives that ensure maximum transparency and independence of judicial bodies. At the same time, developing national practice, the experience of the ECHR should be taken into account, which will allow creating a clearer and more effective system of mechanisms for protecting against bias of judges in criminal cases. Further improvement of law enforcement mechanisms and expansion of judicial responsibility can be important steps to strengthen citizens’ trust in the judicial system of Ukraine and increase its compliance with international human rights standards.