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Georgia v. Russia (II) (Eur. Ct. H.R. (Grand Chamber))

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Christina M. Cerna
Christina M. Cerna*
Affiliation:
OAS, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1979–2012 (ret'd), Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Centre; AIUSA Board of Directors; Co-Chair of the ILA Committee on “Human Rights in Times of Emergency.”
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Extract

Georgia v. Russia (II) is only the first judgment since Bankovic in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has examined the question of jurisdiction in an interstate case involving military operations in the context of an international armed conflict (IAC).

Type
International Legal Documents
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 60 , Issue 5 , October 2021 , pp. 713 - 882
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law

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References

ENDNOTES

1 This was the second of three interstate cases filed by Georgia against Russia resulting from the 2008 war between the two countries. In 2014, Georgia won the first case when the ECtHR ruled that the arrest, detention and collective expulsion of Georgians from Russia in 2006 violated the European Convention on Human Rights. In a follow-up decision in 2019, the Court ruled Russia had to pay €10 million in compensation for damages related to the mass deportation. The third case, filed in 2018, alleges Russian responsibility for the death of Archil Tatunashvili, a Georgian citizen, in Tskhinvali (South Ossetia). See 109 AJIL 167–173 (2015) for a note on Georgia v. Russia (I). Banković and Others v. Belgium and Others, App. No. 52207/99 (Grand Chamber decision on admissibility) (Dec. 23, 2001); see also 41 ILM 517 (2002). Georgia v. Russia (II), App. No. 38263/08, ¶ 113 (Jan. 21, 2021).

2 It is worth noting that the United Kingdom, in the Al-Skeini case, also argued that it did not have “effective control” over Basrah, the territory in Iraq that it occupied. See Al-Skeini v. UK, App. No. 55721/07, ¶ 68 (July 7, 2011); 50 ILM 947–1050 (2011).

3 The EU Factfinding Mission estimated the number of troops, see Georgia v. Russia (II), supra note 1, ¶ 108.

4 Id. ¶ 142.

5 Bankovic, supra note 1, ¶ 80.

6 Al-Skeini, supra note 2.

7 Christina Cerna, How UK national courts drove the European Court of Human Rights to expand its extraterritorial protection to cover victims outside of the European espace juridique: Al-Skeini v UK case, in La Lucha por los Derechos Humanos Hoy (Oscar Parra Vera, Romina I. Sijniensky, and Gabriela Pacheco Arias eds.) (2017). No doubt, the fact that he was the son of a high-ranking Iraqi Colonel helped as well. Al Skeini v. UK, supra note 2, ¶ 96.

8 Al-Skeini, id., ¶¶ 142, 149.

9 Amnesty International, Protecting Human Rights in the UK: The Conservatives’ Proposals for Changing Britain's Human Rights Laws, https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/protectinghumanrightsinuk_conservativeparty.pdf?vhzrAQkxzwCH8hbjeYhhcu5B5lyPp_9K=.

10 Hassan v. UK, App. No. 29750/09 (Sept. 16, 2014); see also 54 ILM 83 (2015).

11 Richard Elkins, Jonathan Morgan and Tom Tugendhat, Clearing the Fog of War: Saving Our Armed Forces from Defeat by Judicial Dictat (Policy Exchange, 2015), https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/clearing-the-fog-of-law-saving-our-armed-forces-from-defeat-by-judicial-diktat/.

12 Id

13 Georgia v. Russia II, supra note 1, ¶ 142.