Dagelijks archief: februari 24, 2015

Does the European Court of Human Rights read the UCall blog? Court makes U-turn in life imprisonment cases

Does theEuropean_Court_of_Human_Rights European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) read the UCall blog? One would almost be inclined to believe so. In an earlier UCall blogpost, we criticized the Court’s approach to life imprisonment cases. In particular, we took issue with the imposition of a strict version of the European rehabilitation approach to penalties (‘the right to hope’) on third states. It is recalled that in Trabelsi v. Belgium (2014), the Court found Belgium in violation of Article 3 ECHR – the prohibition of inhuman treatment – by exposing presumed terrorist Trabelsi to the risk of an irreducible life sentence by extraditing him to the United States. We took the view that in this case, the Court did not do sufficient justice to the possibility of earlier release in the United States, e.g., through presidential pardon, and voiced concerns over the viability of transatlantic anti-terrorism cooperation. Lees verder