The Sustainable Development of European Human Rights Protection

Through its dynamic interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been at the forefront of securing and developing human rights in Europe. By recognizing rights pertaining to LGBTQ+ individuals, freedom from mass surveillance or a right to a healthy climate the ECtHR has adapted and developed its jurisprudence to meet new societal realities and challenges that were impossible to envision by drafters of the Convention. In so doing, it has expanded human rights protection for individuals within the Council of Europe, both in substance and scope. At the same time the Court has been tackling a monumental backlog of cases, been subject to repeated reforms, faced non-compliance and instances of backlash from both illiberal and liberal member states. Hence, the development of enhanced and extended human rights protection in Europe has not been unhinged.

The aim of this workshop is to understand the ‘pushes and pulls’ and assess the evolving practices of the ECtHR through the lens of sustainable development (SD). Under the SD lens ‘development’ is seen as a process and ‘sustainability’ as a measure of the extent to which this process can advance or progress. In the context of European human rights, development may encompass enhanced and extended human rights protection in Europe, through the ECtHR’s dynamic interpretation of the rights enshrined in the Convention. To be sustainable, this development must be attuned to and proceed within a set of substantive, procedural or institutional constraints that are embedded in the convention texts, the Court’s rules of procedure, budget or political capital.

By bringing together theoretical and empirical perspectives the workshop seeks to address questions such as: how to conceptualize the aims and direction of human rights protection in Europe? What constrains its development? How do constraints vary across contexts, such as issue areas of the Convention, member states and time? How can the aims of the human rights system be achieved without violating the conditions which the constraints impose?

Contacts: Associate Professor Amalie Frese or Associate Professor Zuzanna Godzimirska

 

Day 1

12:30 - 13:00 Welcome by workshop organizers
13:00 - 15:00

Panel 1: Decision-making & doctrines
Chair: Cormac Mac Amhlaigh

  • Vladislava Stoyanova: Causation and breach of positive obligations: Navigating between
    the past and the future
  • Sidsel Engmann Juul: Diverging uses of European Consensus across vulnerable groups
  • Mikael Rask Madsen: Does Subsidiarity Enhance Democracy? Subsidiarity between Organisational, Legal and Democratic Concerns
  • Ula Aleksandra Kos: Overcoming Remedial Minimalism: Balanced levelling Up of
    European Court of Human Rights’ Remedial Standards
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 - 17:00

Panel 2: Dynamic rights interpretation
Chair: Kerstin Bree Carlson

  • Aleksandra Dziegielewska: The ECtHR’s evolving approach to the protection of same-sex
    relationships.
  • Cathérine Van de Graaf: Beyond the Founding Vision? The ECtHR between development
    and disconnection.
  • Zuzanna Godzimirska & Amalie Frese: At the margins: Poverty at the European Court of
    Human Rights
19:00 Dinner at FAMO METRO, Østersøgade 114, 2100 Copenhagen Ø

Day 2

9:00 - 10:30

Panel 3: Decision-making & democracy
Chair: Marco Duranti

  • Alain Zysset: Toward A More Sustainable ‘Democratic Society’? Assessing the European
    Court of Human Rights’ ‘Procedural Safeguards’ in the Age of Authoritarian Populism
  • Veronica Fikfak: Sustainable development in the age of backlash
  • Cormac Mac Amhlaigh: The evolutionary interpretative approach to Convention rights of
    the Court and democratic legitimacy
10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 12:30

Panel 4: Legal entrepreneurs
Chair: Maya Eva Charlotte Diekmann

  • Karolina Kocemba: Abortion, Rule of Law and the ECtHR
  • Gaëtan Cliquennois & Simon Chaptel: Liberal and conservative NGOs
  • Ezgi Özlü: Pushes and Pulls from the Lawyers’ Perspective
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 15:00

Panel 5: Politics of interpretation
Chair: Veronica Fikfak

  • Bernarda Bertin: The role of dissenting opinions in developing environmental rights.
  • Ergün Cakal: Faring the flood-gates and losing the sword: The pragmatic politics of
    torture’s interpretation at Strasbourg
  • Kerstin Bree Carlson: Article 8 and the right to have rights: Citizenship Revocation before
    ECtHR
15:00 - 15:30

Break
15:30 - 16:30

Closing panel discussion: Panel TBA

 

 

To address these questions, we welcome:

  1. Theoretical contributions discussing a) the normative content of rights including the dynamics between positive and negative obligations of states; b) the form and scope of ECHR rights, and c) the development of political and societal function and context of human rights in European societies.
  2. Empirical contributions that identify and assess the role of substantive and institutional constraints, such as a) limitations inherent in the Convention texts and the Court’s Rules of Procedure, b) constraints embedded in legal principles expecting consistency and coherence in ECtHR case law, c) economic and budgetary limitations and d) demands from the Court’s constituents, including civil society organizations, academics, states and government officials, applicants and their legal representatives, or domestic compliance constituents.

Contributors are encouraged to adopt interdisciplinary perspectives, and combine legal doctrinal analyses with social scientific methods in studying e.g. the Court’s practices in specific areas of the Convention, its practices against specific member states or at different stages of the process.

Details

Interested parties are encouraged to submit an abstract of maximum 300 words and short bio (in the same file) to the workshop organizers, Amalie Frese and Zuzanna Godzimirska by 25 June 2025. Please indicate “Workshop on Sustainable Development of European Human Rights Protection” in the subject field of your email. Applicants will be informed of the results of the selection process by 15 July 2025.

Selected participants will be expected to submit a paper (ca. 8.000 words) by 15 November 2025. Contributions will be considered for subsequent publication in an edited volume or special issue.

The workshop will be held in person at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen on 4-5 December 2025. The organizers will cover expenses related to travel, accommodation and dinner in Copenhagen for workshop participants. 

Organizers

The workshop is organized by Amalie Frese, Associate Professor of Social and Equality Law and Zuzanna Godzimirska, Associate Professor of Human Rights and International Institutions, iCourts, Centre of Excellence for International Courts and Governance at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.

The workshop is generously supported by the Carlsberg Foundation. It is organized under the auspices of the Open Council of Europe Academic Networks.

Read Call for paper as PDF.