Human Rights

CoE Body Seeks Repeal of Ukrainian NGO Reporting Rules

April 26, 2018

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's (CoE) advisory body for constitutional matters, has called on Ukrainian lawmakers to repeal or limit new financial disclosure requirements for nongovernmental organizations and activists due to their interference with the right to association and their potential chilling effect on civil society activity.
CoE Issues Guidelines on Media "Pluralism"

April 20, 2018

The Council of Europe's (CoE) Committee of Ministers has launched new, "comprehensive" guidelines on how CoE member states should promote media "pluralism" and how they should develop regulations that require transparency in the ownership of media platforms.
ECtHR Rules Against "Formalistic" Russian Judgment

April 19, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently held that a Russian court had violated an appellant's right of access to a tribunal by engaging in a review of his request to reopen a time-barred appeal that the ECtHR considered to be "excessively formalistic" and a "rigid interpretation of domestic law."
Business Leaders Push for Climate-Focused EU Budget

March 29, 2018

The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group, a coalition of European business leaders committed to implementing global climate-change rules, has published a letter to EU leaders to ensure that negotiations over the post-2020 EU budget focus on how they can best align the future finances of the bloc with the fulfillment of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
ECtHR Further Delineates Employee Privacy Rights

March 22, 2018

A recent holding of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that French national railway company SNCF did not violate an employee's right to privacy by secretly searching files not specifically marked "private" on the employee's computer illustrates the growing issue of the propriety of public and private employer surveillance at the ECtHR.
MEPs Seek Fines for "Abusive" Corporate Lawsuits

March 20, 2018

The Guardian reports that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have introduced a proposal for EU legislation that would ease the dismissal of "vexatious" lawsuits launched by companies against journalists and establish fines for "abusive" corporate legal conduct toward the media.
FRA Director Warns of Broad Break with EU Rights Charter

March 06, 2018

In a recent interview, Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) Michael O'Flaherty criticized the migration policies of EU member states as relying on "too many walls" and warned that many countries were pulling away from the human rights agenda contained in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
NGO Report Pushes for UK "Environmental Justice" After Brexit

March 05, 2018

The Centre for International Governance Innovation has published a report warning that the UK must create a framework for "environmental justice" after it leaves the EU to prevent backsliding on European standards strengthened through the "courageous and imaginative jurisprudence" of the Court of Justice of the EU.
ECtHR: Russia Violated Privacy Rights by Copying Laptop Files

March 05, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently held that Russian customs officers had violated the rights of a photojournalist to respect for private life by copying the contents of his laptop in a search for "extremist" material following his return to the country from the region of Abkhazia.
ECtHR: Conviction for "Insulting" Comments Upheld Speech Rights

February 13, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rejected a case in which a lawyer challenged his conviction in Bosnia and Herzegovina for making "insulting expressions towards Serbs" online on the ground that it violated his freedom of expression, finding that the comments had "touched upon the very sensitive matter of ethnic relations in post-conflict Bosnian society."