The European Court of Human Rights as a Pathway to Impunity for International Crimes

This book presents contentious case rulings by the European Court of Human Rights providing extensive case notes and questions. The book elucidates just how the Court came in those cases to contribute to lack of State accountability and to impunity for individual perpetrators of international crimes. Issues addressed include the Court’s: derogation of the jus cogens nature of certain fundamental human rights, grant of State immunity from any liability for systemic torture, unjustified failure to classify certain European Convention on Human Rights violations as international crimes; and improper declining of jurisdiction where States participated in a U.N. peace-building mission that itself involved serious violations of the U.N. Charter human rights principles. The book argues that the moral integrity of the Court’s rulings (rulings that promote and protect international human rights) is an essential aspect of promoting the internationalization of the rule of law.