Just published: European Yearbook on Human Rights 2015

ISBN: 978-3-7083-1040-4, 582 pages, 2015

• European Yearbook on Human Rights 2015
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• Wolfgang Benedek / Florence Benoît-Rohmer / Matthias C. Kettemann / Benjamin Kneihs / Manfred Nowak
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• Publisher's website
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2014 was a year of transition and controversy in Europe: a new Parliament and new Commission were constituted and Opinion 2/13 of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the EU’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights raised serious questions about the coherence of and cooperation between Europe’s human rights protection regimes. Especially in times of the socio-political conflicts that are connected to Europe’s austerity politics, the challenges to human rights grow. It is important to provide the policy-makers and diplomats but also researchers and citizens with cutting-edge research into the practice of human rights protection. This is what the European Yearbook on Human Rights 2015 sets out to do.

Across 38 contributions by 61 authors in five sections, the seventh edition of the Yearbook explains and contextualizes key developments in human rights in Europe and the world.

Edited jointly by representatives of four major European human rights research, teaching and training institutions, the Yearbook 2015 contains, as usual, a Topic of the Year section, and covers all relevant political and legal developments in the field of the three main organizations charged with securing human rights in Europe: EU, Council of Europe and OSCE. A section on cross-cutting topics concludes the Yearbook.

The biggest news regarding institutional protection of human rights in Europe is undoubtedly Opinion 2/13 of the Court of Justice of the European Union which dashed the hopes of many European human rights lawyers for a quick completion of the EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. The CJEU raised a number of complicated issues related to the autonomy of the EU’s legal order, the disputes settlement monopoly of the CJEU, the mechanism provided for EU involvement in Strasbourg, the prior-involvement-procedure and the problems of judicial review of questions regarding the Common Foreign and Security Policy. This Yearbook extensively covers the opinion in the first section, Topic of the Year.

See the exciting table of contents here and below.

Table of Contents

I Topics of the Year ................................................................ 25
Paul GRAGL
The Reasonableness of Jealousy: Opinion 2/13 and EU
Accession to the ECHR ............................................................................. 27
Elisabeth STEINER and Ioana RĂTESCU
The Long Way to Strasbourg – The Impact of the CJEU’s Opinion
on the EU’s Accession to the ECHR ........................................................ 51
Maria BERGER und Clara RAUCHEGGER
Opinion 2/13: Multiple Obstacles to the Accession of the EU to
the ECHR .................................................................................................... 61

II European Union .................................................................... 77
Wolfgang BENEDEK
EU Human and Fundamental Rights Action in 2014 .............................. 79
Hans-Peter FOLZ
The Court of Justice of the European Union and Human Rights in 2013-2014.................................................................................................. 105
Theodor RATHGEBER
Human Rights à la Carte: The EU at the UN Human Rights
Council in 2014......................................................................................... 125
Gosia PEARSON
Assessment of the Implementation of the EU Human Rights
Strategy and Action Plan as Regard Business and Human Rights .... 135
11

Table of Contents Valentina CAGNIN
The Potential Role of the Horizontal Social Clause (Article 9
TFEU) on Social Rights Protection ........................................................ 143
Karin LUKAS
The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Social Charter – an Alliance for Social Rights?................................................ 153
Ewelina TYLEC
The Influence of Economic Crisis on Fundamental Rights in the European Union: A Step Forward or Step Backwards? ....................... 165
Moritz BIRK and Gerrit ZACH
Torture Prevention in the EU – Many Actors, Few Outcomes? ........... 175
Grazia REDOLFI
European Union’s Attitude Towards Reproductive Rights: Clear
Policy or Double Standards Approach ................................................. 189
Denise VENTURI
The Body as an Instrument of Border Control: Remarks on Age Assessment for Unaccompanied Migrant Children ............................. 201
Rocío ALAMILLOS SÁNCHEZ
EU Sanctions Policy: A New Human Rights Tool? The Case of Belarus ..................................................................................................... 213
Nicolas HACHEZ and Jan WOUTERS
Introducing FRAME: A Large-Scale Research Project on the
European Union and Human Rights ...................................................... 227
Katharina HÄUSLER and Alexandra TIMMER
Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law in EU External
Action: Conceptualization and Practice ............................................... 231
Balázs MAJTÉNYI
The Nation’s Will as Trump in the Hungarian Fundamental Law ........ 247
Felipe GÓMEZ ISA and María NAGORE CASAS
EU Member States Under the Universal Periodic Review of the
Human Rights Council: Achievements and Challenges ...................... 261

Carolina PAVESE, Jan WOUTERS and Katrien MEUWISSEN

The European Union and Brazil in the Quest for the Global
Promotion of Human Rights: Prospects for a Strategic
Partnership .............................................................................................. 279
Viljam ENGSTRÖM and Mikaela HEIKKILÄ
Lisbonising Back and Forth? Strategic Planning and
Fundamental Rights in the AFSJ............................................................ 295
Veronika APOSTOLOVSKI, Isabella MEIER, Markus MÖSTL, Klaus STARL and Maddalena VIVONA
Measuring Human Rights in EU Practice: Realities and
Requirements ........................................................................................... 307

III Council of Europe .............................................................. 317
Brigitte OHMS, Dominik HAIDER, Elisabeth HANDL-PETZ, Martina LAIS and Sebastian SCHOLZ
The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in
2014: A Year of Consolidation ................................................................ 319
Amalie BANG
Recent Developments in Whistleblower Protection in Europe ........... 343
Jonas GRIMHEDEN and Gabriel N. TOGGENBURG
Fundamental Rights in EU Criminal Justice Instruments: How to
Best Make the Glass Slipper Fit? ........................................................... 355
Adina PORTARU
The “Rights and Freedoms of Others” vs. Religious
Manifestations: Who Wins at the ECtHR? ............................................. 367
Zane RATNIECE and Kushtrim ISTREFI
The Limits of the Strasbourg Court’s Two-Level Harmonization Approach vis-à-vis SC Resolutions in Al-Dulimi .................................. 379
Philip CZECH
European Human Rights in International Military Operations............. 391
Sarah LAMBRECHT
The Brexit Scenario: Potential Consequences of a Withdrawal of
the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights .................. 407

IV OSCE.................................................................................... 421
Manfred NOWAK
Torture, Enforced Disappearances and Extrajudicial Killings in
the OSCE Region ..................................................................................... 423
Eva Katinka SCHMIDT and Vasily VASHCHANKA
Judicial Performance Evaluation and Judicial Independence: International Standards for an Appropriate Balance............................ 435
Irina URUMOVA
The Role of Social Inclusion in Preventing Victimization: What
We Know and What We Don’t Know ...................................................... 445
Lucile SENGLER
Foreign Terrorist Fighters: A Human Rights Perspective.................... 453
Martina ORLANDI
Wartime Sexual Violence: The Route to Accountability Between International Justice and Political Commitments ................................ 467
Kateryna RYABIKO and Marcin WALECKI
A Right to Political Participation Beyond Elections ............................. 479
Andrei RICHTER
The Relationship between Freedom of Expression and the Ban
on Propaganda for War ........................................................................... 489

V Cross-Cutting Issues........................................................... 505
Klaus STARL, Veronika APOSTOLOVSKI and Ingrid NICOLETTI
Human Rights Education for the Judiciary: An Assessment of a
Decade of Training Experience ............................................................. 507
Tessa SCHREMPF
An Economy to Feed (on) Human Beings? Human Rights and the Responsibility to Counteract .................................................................. 517
Patrick HARRIS
Prisoners: Disenfranchised with Dignity? Searching the Legal
and the Theoretical to Find the Cure for Europe’s Ailing Right to
Vote ........................................................................................................... 533

VI Book Reviews ..................................................................... 551
Biographies....................................................................................................... 567