Transitional Justice in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

International human rights law provides minimum requirements for government behavior in all spheres of policy, including a government’s efforts to deal with the legacy of a previous regime and/or a violent conflict. To some extent, the creation of supranational human rights protection mechanisms after World War II in itself can be considered a transitional justice effort. This is particularly the case in Europe, where the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was adopted in 1951, only a few years after the end of the war. Since its adoption, ECHR case law related to transitional justice has included hundreds of judgments and decisions dealing with a wide range of issues, mainly compensation and restitution, but also prosecution, lustration, memory and truth. Situations that have been addressed include the legacy of the World War II, the legacy of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the aftermath of the war in the former Yugoslavia. This case law sets out a number of standards and criteria that warrant more attention than they have received in the field of transitional justice.