European Institutions

UK Legislators Reject EU Customs Backstop

July 18, 2018

The Guardian reports that the UK House of Commons rejected an amendment to Brexit legislation that would have required Britain to remain in a customs union with the EU if the government reached no agreement on free trade with the bloc by 2019.
CoE Official Warns of Migrant, Social Rights Violations in Greece

July 16, 2018

Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović has called on CoE members to address the ongoing arrival of migrants in Greece “in a spirit of collective responsibility and solidarity” and warned of the impact of “austerity” measures on the social and economic rights of the country’s citizens.
ECtHR: Russia Violated Prisoners’ Right to Compensation

July 16, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Russian courts violated the rights of two complainants to compensation by awarding them a low level of damages to compensate them for extra time they spent in prison.
ECtHR: Russia Failed to Comply with Ruling on Prisoners’ Family Rights

July 16, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Russian government failed to reform its practice of interfering with the ability of prisoners to maintain contact with their families by sending them to far-away prisons in response to a 2017 ECtHR judgment, and that Russia offered no effective remedy to challenge such policies.
ECtHR: Turkey Complied with Rights Law in Disbanding Kurdish Group

July 16, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently held that Turkish authorities had complied with European human rights law when they dissolved a Kurdish foundation whose covert aim was to establish a “theocratic totalitarian” Kurdish State based on sharia law in Turkey.