Human Rights

CoE Anti-Torture Committee Urges Italian Prison Reform

September 19, 2017

The Council of Europe's (CoE) Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has released a report critiquing elements of the Italian penitentiary system it believes violate previous CoE recommendations, European Court of Human Rights case law, and the 1984 UN Convention on Torture.
NGOs: EU Energy Plan Should Consider Social Costs

September 19, 2017

Nongovernmental organization participants on the European Economic and Social Committee have expressed concern over the European Commission's proposed Clean Energy for All Europeans package, which they predict may put 50 million Europeans at risk of “energy poverty.”
NGO Urges Social Worker Use of Rights Law

September 14, 2017

Helen Wildbore of the British Institute of Human Rights writes on how British social workers should expand their use of the UK Human Rights Act, a law that effectively transposes the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, in the country's courts to help further the "dignity and respect" of their clients.
ECtHR: Businesses Must Respect Employee Privacy

September 06, 2017

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Romanian courts failed to uphold an employee's right to privacy by permitting a company that had secretly monitored the employee's communications to fire him due to the company's discovery that he had sent personal messages during work hours.
CoE Body Critiques Hungarian University Law

August 14, 2017

The Council of Europe's (CoE) constitutional law body, the Venice Commission, has issued a preliminary opinion on a Hungarian law regulating the operation of foreign universities in the country asserting that, while the government could legitimately apply the law's requirements to new institutions, they are "unjustified" when applied to universities that are already in operation.
ECJ Rejects Canada-EU Passenger Data Sharing Deal

August 14, 2017

The Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) has held that an agreement between EU and Canadian authorities on the sharing of data on air passengers violates data privacy protections of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights because the shared information is too broad in scope and is not shielded from improper use by Canadian and other government officials.
FRA Expresses Concern on Migrant "Pushbacks," Returns

August 14, 2017

In its latest monthly report on migrant-related human rights issues, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has expressed concern regarding policies among EU member states on either pushing back unauthorized migrants attempting to enter their territory or returning migrants from their territory to countries the FRA deems "unstable."
ECtHR: Lawyer Communication Restriction Violated Rights

August 14, 2017

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that restrictions by the Netherlands on communications revealing classified information between a criminal defendant accused of leaking state secrets and the lawyer defending him hindered the lawyer from providing an effective defense, violating the defendant's right to give information to counsel.
ECtHR: Halving Disability Benefits Violated Property Rights

August 14, 2017

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Hungarian government violated a woman's right to her possessions by reducing her disability benefit by half as part of a national change in the methodology for the assessment of a disability, which the ECtHR asserted imposed an "excessive individual burden" on the woman.
CoE Body Warns of "Nationalistic Populism"

August 09, 2017

The annual report of the Council of Europe's (CoE) Commission Against Racism and Intolerance warned of a rise in "nationalistic populism" across Europe in 2016, asserting that "racist insults and xenophobic hate speech have reached unprecedented levels" and that Islamophobia is a "persisting trend."