UCL - Leading cases of the European Court of Human Rights

[DROP2093]

[30h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 2d semester.

Teacher(s): Johan Callewaert

Language: English

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes

Aims

The European Court of Human Rights is tasked with authoritatively interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights which contains the only pan-European, binding and justiciable catalogue of fundamental rights available to date. Nearly all European States, including Belgium, have incorporated the Convention into their domestic legal system, often conferring on it precedence over ordinary law.

The course aims at making the students familiar with the most important principles and trends emerging from the Court's case-law, so as to enable them to usefully rely on the Convention in the expanding number of fields where it applies. In addition, the course will provide students with an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the use of legal English, which plays an ever increasing role in the international sphere. For this purpose, the emphasis will be placed on reading, understanding and discussing the main Court's judgments, a collection of which will be made available as course material.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the content of the course will be determined so as to be complementary to the other two courses making up the human rights option (DROP2091 and DROP2092).
The course is based on participatory teaching methods (learning through projects or problems, review of the relevant case-law and doctrine, debates with guest speakers, field studies ...) which allow the students to develop independently a critical, forward-looking and inventive look on public international law. Students are encouraged to participate and to get involved in learning, which has both an individual and a collective dimension.

Main themes

By way of introduction, the course will first deal with the basic principles governing the procedure before the Court and the latter's competence (distinction between admissibility and merits, admissibility requirements, scope of the case, etc.). This will be followed by an in-depth analysis of the leading cases relating to each of the substantial rights laid down in the Convention (including the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to freedom and security, to a fair trial, to respect for private and family life, the freedom of expression and association, the prohibition of discrimination and the protection of property). Finally, the most relevant case-law on the award of just satisfaction and the execution of the Court's judgments as well as on the relationship between the Convention and EU law will be addressed.