21 September 2025
Balancing Rent Control and Property Rights
Across major European cities, the housing crisis has moved from warning signs to full-scale emergency. As housing production slowed down and public stock was sold off or left to decay, European governments increasingly turned housing over to market forces. To deal with the stark consequences, governments have responded with a familiar tool: rent control. But these interventions raise complex legal questions. How far can states go in regulating the rental market without infringing upon landlords’ constitutional property rights? And what happens when these laws are tested before the courts? Continue reading >>
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05 June 2025
It’s Not a Trap
Despite most countries having trouble getting rid of bribery in daily life, only few so far have dared integrity testing: sending out undercover testers disguised as ordinary citizens to contact the public administration and check which public employees ask for bribes. The main argument against such undercover tests has been that they constitute “entrapment”. However, in Cavca, the ECtHR finally dispels the myth that these tests in and of themselves equal entrapment. Yet, the decision leaves one key question unaddressed: Just when does integrity testing become entrapment? Continue reading >>
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12 March 2025
Balancing on the Edge of Loyalty and Legality
At the end of 2024, the current Dutch government proposed new legislation in the shape of the “asylum crisis measures legislation” and a “two-status-system legislation”. Through advisory reports by the Council for the Judiciary, the broader public was properly introduced to the government’s plans. The reports strongly urge the government not to pursue these proposals for their potential consequences on the judiciary and implementation of the new EU Asylum Pact. Although some of these individual measures may be legal, a holistic approach shows that it is the sum of these parts that finds itself at odds with EU law, balancing on the edge of loyalty and legality. Continue reading >>
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20 February 2025
A New Step in the Greening of the Right to Life
In Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found a violation of Article 2 ECHR on account of the State’s failure to protect the right to life of residents in an area of Southern Italy known as the “Land of Fires” (Terra dei Fuochi). This is the first judgment linking a violation of the right to life to the prolonged exposure to pollutants released into the environment. The decisive element for the applicability of the right to life has been a shift in the Court’s approach to the causal link requirement that triggers a violation of Article 2. The Cannavacciuolo judgment should therefore be seen as a turning point for climate and environmental justice. Continue reading >>
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19 February 2025
The Binoculars at the Borders of Europe
A mere two months into 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have dealt with no less than 7 cases concerning various types of alleged pushbacks at Europe’s borders. In each of these cases rules of evidence were and remain at the forefront of effective human rights protection. This contribution highlights how the defending duty-bearing parties sought to interpret the applicable rules of evidence to evade responsibility. It further argues that failure by the Courts to meaningfully interpret these rules in light of current-day realities and the principle of effectiveness could risk eroding the absolute human rights at the core of the European legal order. Continue reading >>
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19 June 2024
Up to Four Times
The Council of Europe’s requirements for transparency in the process of selecting a national judge for the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) should be strengthened. This is the lesson to be learned from the saga of the selection of a Polish judge, lasting now for more than three years. Poland, which has been going through a crisis of the rule of law in recent years, and the ongoing process of its restoration, may serve as an important example. Continue reading >>
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11 June 2024
Nothing but your own Constitution?
The recent report on Germany by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights following her visit in late 2023 records an alarming situation regarding social inequality in Germany. The document criticizes Germany for its approach to combat social inequality. Similarly harsh in tone reads the statement by the Federal Government on the Commissioner’s report, claiming the situation not to be as alarming as presented and the German law to have been misinterpreted. What’s it all about? Continue reading >>28 February 2024
Asylum-Seekers’ Right to Free Movement
Restricting the freedom of movement of unwanted asylum seekers is the conceptual core of the CEAS reform package politically agreed upon by the EU’s legislative institutions in December 2023. Large groups of the people seeking international protection in the EU will be subject to so-called border procedures. Their claims will be processed while being ‘kept at or in proximity to the external border or transit zones’ (Commission proposal) in order to prevent their onward movement and to facilitate ensuing deportations. Introducing such confinement measures will be mandatory for all Member States, provided that an asylum seeker meets certain criteria, in particular a low rate of success of earlier protection claims made by his or her fellow nationals, calculated on an EU-wide average. Why did we fail to make asylum-seekers’ right to free movement relevant in context of the CEAS reform? Continue reading >>
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08 February 2022
The Duty to Exhaust Remedies with Systemic Deficiencies
On 3 February 2022, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in Advance Pharma v Poland and addressed the question of whether an applicant is required to exhaust domestic remedies that suffer from systemic deficiencies for the first time. While the Court does not yet give a clear answer to this particularly sensitive issue, this case is another reminder of just how difficult it is for the Convention system to engage with countries that structurally impair their judicial system. Continue reading >>
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07 January 2022
Pushbacks against the Child’s Best Interests
The lack of a functional EU-level legal framework, designed for high immigration numbers, contributed to increasing recourse to practices of dissuading migrants away from the EU territory. This did not leave the European Court of Human Rights indifferent and it decided to give a legal green light to pushbacks under certain conditions. The Court applies its jurisprudence equally to all individuals and in all situations. In doing so, however, it violates the principle of the child’s best interests. A more nuanced approach should be taken, guaranteeing special protection to children, in accordance with the principle of the child’s best interests. Continue reading >>
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