DISSECT Blog

By Irina Fehr1 and Jill Alpes2 A ‘pushback’ refers to the forcible expulsion of individuals from a country without considering their specific circumstances, denying them the chance to seek international protection, often accompanied by violence and excessive force. Although pushback practices may also constitute crimes, human rights-based pushback litigation is predominant. In this blogpost, weContinue reading “Pushing states to evidence pushbacks: Lessons from MH v. Croatia for intersecting domestic criminal law and international human rights”

By Emma Várnagy [This post first appeared on Strasbourg Observers] Introduction In this blog post, I discuss the case of Bódi and Others v Hungary (App.no.29554/17) declared inadmissible by the Court. The decision concerns the investigation of an anti-Roma hate crime with the potential involvement of a police officer. It is a disappointing decision becauseContinue reading “Bódi and Others v Hungary: when the Court’s focus on the volume of procedures speaks volumes about its stance on antigypsyism”

By: Jozef Seghers* 1.    Introduction Ilva Taranto is Europe’s largest steel plant, and its travails have given rise to commensurate amounts of legislation and court cases. In the past few weeks, the plant has been in the news in Italy once more, as the government wrangled with the private shareholders over yet another investment plan,Continue reading “Scientific evidence in Strasbourg’s environmental jurisprudence through the prism of Ilva Taranto”

By Ergün Cakal* DISSECT hosted a two-day symposium on ‘Evidentiary regimes of UN Treaty Bodies’ (UNTBs) between 15-16 May 2023, at Ghent University. It brought together 20 participants who each presented and discussed a paper on research or practice around the use of evidence in different treaty bodies, upon the backdrop of the potentials andContinue reading “Evidence between expertise and expedience: Reflections on the symposium ‘Evidentiary regimes of UN Treaty Bodies: Perspectives from research and practice’ (Ghent, 15-16 May 2023)”

Por Genaro A. Manrique Giacomán* Introducción En septiembre de 2021, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) sometió a la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Corte IDH) el caso Guzmán Medina y otros vs. Colombia[1]. Este caso trata sobre la desaparición de Arles Edisson Guzmán Medina ocurrida en Medellín el 30 de noviembre de 2002,Continue reading “Desafíos probatorios sobre el derecho de toda persona a ser buscada en el Sistema Interamericano: el caso Guzmán Medina y otros vs. Colombia”

By Prof. Christopher Roberts [This post first appeared on Strasbourg Observers] Machalikashvili and Others v. Georgia concerned the killing of T.M. by members of the Counter-Terrorism Department of the State Security Service (‘SSS’) of Georgia on 26 December 2017. The precise circumstances in which this killing took place, as well as the integrity and comprehensiveness of the investigationContinue reading “Machalikashvili and Others V. Georgia: The Critical Importance of the Burden and Standard of Proof to Human Rights Adjudication”

DISSECT is very pleased to report that members of the team Ruwadzano Patience Makumbe and Edward Kahuthia Murimi have co-authored a blog post which Opinio Juris has published as part of its Symposium on Fairness, Equality, and Diversity in Open Source Investigations. Their post problematises the use of digital open source evidence and interrogates theContinue reading “Re-Imagining Standards of Fairness in Open Source Investigations: A Commentary on Fact-finding in the Tigray Conflict”

By Nina Kolowratnik* On the 23rd of August 2022, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court) held a public hearing in the case Pueblos Indígenas Tagaeri y Taromenane v. Ecuador (Tagaeri Taromenane). The Waorani community of the Amazonian rainforest seized the moment to invite the Court to visit their Indigenous homeland and see forContinue reading “‘Seeing it with your own eyes’: The value and limits of the Inter-American Court’s in-situ visits to Indigenous communities”

By Nele Schuldt [This post first appeared on Strasbourg Observers] IntroductionOn October 11th 2022, the third section of the Strasbourg Court delivered an important judgment in the case of Pavlov and Others v Russia (Application no. 31612/09), concerning air pollution, which will hopefully prove to have great ramifications for pending and future environmental and climate cases. In short, the majorityContinue reading “Pavlov v. Russia: Welcoming the Court’s proactive shift in its handling of environmental complaints, including their evidentiary challenges*”

By Edward Kahuthia Murimi & Ruwadzano Makumbe Introduction The war in Tigray has unleashed untold suffering for the people in the region. According to the reports of the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) of OHCHR and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (November 2021) and the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE or ‘theContinue reading “Applying an Evidentiary Lens to the Conflict in Ethiopia: Issues Arising from Investigative Mandates”

By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour Thanks to Emma Várnagy whose insightful post on the P.H. case published on the Strasbourg Observers blog inspired me to write my own take on the case, and whose comments on my text helped improve it. Would you jump from a 7.7 metres high window? Of course not! Nobody would, although, according toContinue reading “The escape of the state: No shift in the burden of the proof and no anti-Roma discrimination by the police in P.H. v Slovakia”

By Emma Várnagy [This post first appeared on Strasbourg Observers] The case of P.H. v Slovakia (Application no 37574/19) is at least the eleventh case before the Strasbourg Court in which it is confronted with the mysterious fall of a person from a police station window. It is the seventh case where questions of discriminationContinue reading “P.H. v Slovakia: When the concept of discrimination goes out the window at the Strasbourg Court*”

By Edward Kahuthia Murimi Typically, international human rights courts and bodies require applicants to meet various requirements for their applications to be deemed admissible. At the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (hereafter, African Court or Court) one requirement is that the application must be submitted ‘within a reasonable time from the date localContinue reading “How long is (not) too long before filing an application at the African Court? Evidentiary challenges for incarcerated applicants”

By Emma Várnagy This post is based on a paper which I am thankful to have had the opportunity to present at the ‘Critical Approaches to Romani Studies Conference’ on 18 May 2022 organized by Södertörn University and Central European University. I am also grateful to my doctoral supervisor, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, for generously commenting onContinue reading “Why the European Court of Human Rights Would Do Well to Start Using Stereotypes as Evidence – A Critique of the Strasbourg Approach to Anti-Roma Police Violence Cases”

By Anne-Katrin Speck* Introduction It has been two months since Europe woke up to the horrific news that Russia had launched a brutal invasion of neighbouring Ukraine—two months during which Ukraine has seen immeasurable suffering and destruction, and two months which have dramatically changed Europe’s human rights landscape. It is no exaggeration to state thatContinue reading “Russia and the Strasbourg Court: evidentiary challenges arising from Russia’s expulsion from the Council of Europe”

By Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Ruwadzano Makumbe and Genaro Manrique For 18 months now, the DISSECT research project has started to explore evidence in international human rights adjudication. Focusing on the interplay between truth, power and evidence, one of its core questions is how the judicial process tries to eliminate but keeps having to deal with factualContinue reading “First Thoughts on ‘Truth’ in Human Rights Adjudication”