PUBLISHED:January 18, 2018

Russia and Non-Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgments

Russia and Non-Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Lecture Lauri Malksoo Lecture 12:30 on 3/6/18

Tuesday, March 6
12:30 pm | Room 4045
Duke Law School

Lauri Mälksoo, Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu (Estonia), currently in residence at the Woodrow Wilson Center, will give a talk on “Russia and Non-Compliance with European Court of Human Rights Judgments.” Lauri Mälksoo will discuss compliance with judgments within the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a long-standing issue that has sharpened after the Council of Europe (CoE) expanded its membership in the 1990s. He will focus on resistance to comply with payment of compensation to victims as well as the more complex problem of so-called general measures (such as legislative changes to achieve justice or to avoid similar kinds of human rights violations in the future). In July 2015, the Russian Constitutional Court decided that Russia would not implement judgments of the ECtHR if the judgments were considered counter to the Russian Constitution. The Russian Constitutional Court has decided in two cases (Anchugov and Gladkov and Yukos) that implementation of the respective judgments of the ECtHR would be unconstitutional in Russia. Mr. Mälksoo will also discuss traditionalist and sovereignty-centered interpretations of human rights in Russia that challenge the liberal/Western ideology of human rights and that are part of the impetus behind the resistance to comply with Strasbourg judgments.

This event will be moderated by Larry Helfer, Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Duke Law. This is part of the Human Rights in Practice series, which is co-sponsored by the International Human Rights Clinic, and Center for International and Comparative LawAdditional co-sponsors include the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Human Rights Law Society, and International Law Society.

Lunch will be provided.  For more information, please contact Ali Prince.

Biography

Lauri Mälksoo is Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu, the oldest university in Estonia (established in 1632). He is associate member of the Institut de droit international and member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He was member of the executive board of the European Society of International Law in 2008-2016. He is the author of "Russian Approaches to International Law" (OUP, 2015) and co-editor and co-author of "Russia and the European Court of Human Rights: the Starsbourg Effect" (CUP, 2018). He is currently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.