A conference on the Future of the European Court of Human Rights, which will take place in Brighton on 18-20 April 2012, will consider proposals for reforming the work of this key human rights body. Together with many other NGOs, IPHR has signed a joint statement expressing concern about several proposed reforms aimed at addressing the number of applications pending before the Court. As pointed out in the statement, there is a real risk that these reforms will lead to greater delays, restrict the right of individual petition, place the Court in an inappropriate posture of acting as a fourth instance, and provide some governments with greater latitude to avoid their human rights obligations. The organizations signing on to the statement call for efforts to instead be focused on ensuring the implementation of reforms already agreed and underway, improving the national execution of Court judgments and implementation of the Convention more generally and enhancing the quality and transparency of the processes for national nomination of judicial candidates to serve on the Court.
Home Statements & Press Releases Joint statement: Strengthening the protection of human rights in Europe