The European Court of Human Rights: the right place to address the protection of human rights at sea?
| Autor | Khagani Guliyev |
| Cargo del Autor | Ph.D in international law from the University of Strasbourg; Lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights |
| Páginas | 543-559 |
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CHAPTER 21
The European Court of Human
Rights: the right place to address the
protection of human rights at sea?
Khagani GULIYEV
Ph.D in international law from the University of Strasbourg; Lawyer
at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights1
Summary: 1. Introduction. 2. The ECHR as a key legal mechanism for the protection
of human rights at sea. 2.1. The accessibility of the ECHR to dierent types of appli-
cants. 2.2. The state of ratication of the relevant international legal instruments. 2.3.
The absence of limitations and exceptions to the ECHR’s competence. 2.4. The nature
of the alleged violated human rights. 3. The ECHR in its capacity as an interpreter of the
law of the sea. 3.1. An interpretation of the Convention in harmony with the law of the
sea. 3.2. The ECHR’s reluctance to act as a law of the sea tribunal. 3.3. The ECHR’s at-
tempts at inuencing the development of the law of the sea. 4. Concluding observations.
1. INTRODUCTION
Although the concept of jurisdiction within the meaning of Article 1 of
the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Free-
doms of 4 November 1950 (Convention) is constantly construed by the Europe-
1 The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
544 LA CONSTRUCCIÓN JURÍDICA DE UN ESPACIO MARÍTIMO COMÚN EUROPEO
KHAGANI GULIYEV
an Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as «primarily territorial»2, the ECHR does
not hesitate to apply the Convention in respect of various activities carried out
at sea by the States Parties to the Convention. The ECHR appears in that re-
spect as a competent judicial body for the protection of human rights at sea and
the Convention, which is an «instrument of European public order3», consti-
tutes a major legal instrument guaranteeing the respect of human rights at sea4.
The possibility to bring a case to the ECHR concerning the protection of hu-
man rights at sea and the particular role that the ECHR could play in this eld im-
mediately raise the question of the relevance and eectiveness of the ECHR in the
examination of various situations concerning the alleged violation of human rights
at sea. The question of the ECHR’s relevance and eectiveness in the cases involv-
ing the application of the law of the sea is nowadays all the more important in the
light of a possible competition or complementarity between the competence of
the ECHR and other specialised international tribunals in respect of the law of the
2 Banković and Others v. Belgium and Others (dec.) [GC], no. 52207/99, § 59, ECHR
2001XII.
3 Loizidou v. Turkey (preliminary objections), 23 March 1995, § 91, Series A no. 310.
4 The question of the applicability of the Convention to the dierent maritime zones is
not dealt in the present study. On this subject, see among many others: Paul Tavernier,
La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme et la mer, in La mer et son droit : Mélanges
oerts à Laurent Lucchini et Jean-Pierre Quéneudec, Paris, Pedone, 2003, pp. 575-
89; Efthymios Papastavridis, European Convention on Human Rights and the law of
the sea: the Strasbourg Court in unchartered waters?, in Malgosia Fitzmaurice and
Panos Merkouris (eds.), The interpretation and application of the European Conven-
tion of Human Rights: legal and practical implications, Leiden, Martinus Nijho, 2013,
pp.117-46; Lucius Caisch, Law of the sea and internationally protected human rights,
in Liber amicorum : in honour of Guđmundur Eiríksson. San José, Costa Rica, 2017,
pp. 215-38; Peter Kempees, The Convention a «regional» instrument? Territorial and
quasi-territorial scope of Article 1 jurisdiction, in Human rights in a global world: es-
says in honour of judge Luis López Guerra, Guido Raimondi, Iulia Motoc, Pere Pastor
Vilanova and Carmen Morte Gomez (eds.), Oisterwijk, Wolf Legal Publishers, 2018,
pp. 69-88; Andrea Caligiuri, Les liens entre la CEDH et le droit de la mer dans la ju-
risprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, in Angela Del Vecchio and
Roberto Virzo (eds.), Interpretations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea by International Courts and Tribunals, Cham, Springer, 2019, pp. 269-83.
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