The European Convention on Human Rights: Beyond a Treaty

This online conference at Utrecht University explores the ECHR, beyond its formal treaty character, as an inspirational and aspirational source of human rights.

Concerning the former, it will look at the practice of application of the ECHR as a constitutionally domesticated source of inspiration and gap-filler by entities not party to the Convention. This includes the EU, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Second, the conference aims to scrutinize instances where domestic courts may have employed the ECtHR’s case-law to justify social aspirations towards the advancement of human rights that may go beyond the minimum standards set by the Court, and instances where domestic courts may have deliberately chosen to minimize the Strasbourg standards. 

The Conference is organised by Kushtrim Istrefi, Luca Pasquet and Claire Loven, under the flag of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR), SIM, Montaigne and U-Call.

*Information on how to attend the online event will be provided in the first week of May

Programme

Introduction by the organisers (13.00 – 13.15)

Panel 1: ECHR as an inspirational source of human rights (13.15 – 14.45)Chair: Rick Lawson, Leiden University

• ECHR in the EU legal order
  Speaker: Ineta Ziemele, Judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union (former President of the Latvian Constitutional Court and ECtHR judge)
   
• Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional domestication of ECHR through the Dayton Peace Agreement
  Speaker: Antoine Buyse, Utrecht University
   
• Constitutional domestication of ECHR in Kosovo
  Speaker: Kushtrim Istrefi, Utrecht University

Break (14.45 – 15.00)

Panel 2: ECHR as an aspirational source of human rights? (15.00 – 16.45)
Chair: Claire Loven, Utrecht University

• Defining minimum standards of Convention protection by the ECtHR
  Speaker: Janneke Gerards, Utrecht University
   
• Under the bar: explaining deliberate choices to minimize the Strasbourg standards
  Speaker: Catherine van de Heyning, Antwerp University
   
• The role of the ECHR in a ‘culture of justification’: the example of Urgenda v. the Netherland
  Speaker: Ingrid Leijten, Leiden University
   
• The application of the ECtHR jurisprudence by domestic courts in cases concerning the immunity of international organisations
  Speaker: Luca Pasquet, Utrecht University

Concluding remarks by the organisers (16.45 – 17.00)