The Relationship Between Domestic Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Ongoing Reforms of the European Court of Human Rights: With a Case Study on Cyprus and Turkey

Το βιβλίο του Κώστα Παρασκευά κυκλοφορεί από τις εκδόσεις Intersentia και είναι εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον τόσο για την ανάπτυξη των θεμάτων που αφορούν στην Κύπρο, όσο και για τη συνεισφορά του στο θέμα της συνεχούς ανάπτυξης του μηχανισμού του ΕΔΑΔ.


Να και η σύντομη περιγραφή:

The European Court of Human Rights has become a “victim of ongoing reforms”. Continuous efforts to streamline and reinforce the system have proved inadequate in managing the challenge of its ever-increasing caseload. The consensus is that further reforms to the European Convention on Human Rights mechanisms are necessary in order to cope with the serious influx of cases from the 47 member states of the Council of Europe.

This book analyses the set of five Recommendations referred to in the 2004 Declaration of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to encourage member states to take effective domestic steps in ensuring appropriate protection of the Convention rights at the domestic level, in full conformity with the principle of subsidiarity. It also traces and evaluates the impact of the Convention in the domestic legal orders of Cyprus and Turkey and assesses, comparatively, the effective implementation of the May 2004 Recommendations in these two member states.

This book demonstrates how efforts to secure the survival and effective operation of the Court by reducing the ever increasing number of individual applications, must primarily be undertaken at national level so that the burden to comply with the Convention is carried by the member states in the first instance. The 2004 Recommendations, which address the source of the problem, are appropriate prescriptions for a healthy future and constitute a technical vehicle for implementing the Convention in the domestic legal orders of member states. These Recommendations constitute guidelines stemming directly from the Convention and are therefore invaluable in assisting member states in the pursuit to improve the protection of human rights “at home”.

This study is a timely and valuable aid for Council of Europe and Court’s officials, Governments, human rights NGOs, academics and practitioners, who are involved in the ongoing process of reforming the Court.

This book is an update of Dr Costas Paraskevas’ PhD thesis, completed at London Metropolitan University. As research assistant at the Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute of the same university, he worked on the project “International human rights and fact-finding: an analysis of the fact-finding missions conducted by the European Commission and Court of Human Rights”. He currently works in Cyprus as a human rights lawyer. He has published articles on the European Convention on Human Rights and participates regularly in conferences on the reforms of the Court.