The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg in 1959 to enforce states’ obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECtHR adjudicates on complaints brought by individuals against a state party or parties (individual applications) and complaints brought by a state party against another state party (inter-state applications) concerning alleged violations of a right or rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Pushbacks
Germany and Greece concluded the so-called Seehofer Deal in 2018. The administrative agreement named after German Minister of Interior Horst Seehofer says: migrants and refugees who have already applied for asylum in Greece and arrive to Germany via Austria should be refused entry and returned to Greece within 48 hours. This is what happened to Syrian asylum seeker HT.
Kunduz
On 4 September 2009, two US fighter jets, acting on the orders of German Army Colonel Georg Klein, bombed a large group of people and two tanker trucks on a sandbar in the Kunduz River in Afghanistan. More than 100 people were killed or injured. ECCHR is assisting Abdul Hanan, a father who lost his two sons, aged eight and twelve, in the attack.
Trade unionists
ECCHR filed a criminal complaint against Nestlé and some of its top managers in 2012. The complaint accuses the managers of being in breach of their obligations by failing to prevent crimes of Colombian paramilitary groups and failing to adequately protect trade unionists from these crimes.
Torture
Chechnya, an autonomous republic in Russia, and a black hole in the Council of Europe’s human rights protection system: civil society has been the target of severe human rights violations for years. Having resumed office as head of the Chechen Republic in 2007, Ramzan Kadyrov and his close allies have repeatedly deployed military and police forces to terrorize the civilian population in order to “ensure political stability.”
