The Case Law of the ECtHR in 2024 : the ECHR and the Contemporary Global Challenges for the International Community

This contribution analyses the main developments in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in 2024. As usual, the main criterion for selecting the relevant cases has been the list of ‘key cases’ published by the Court. A preliminary overview shows that many of those cases concerned, in one way or another, issues that have been described by scholars, states and international organisations, and sometimes even by the Court, as ‘global challenges’ or ‘emergencies’, such as, to mention just the most notable ones, the war of aggression against Ukraine, migration, climate change, attacks on judicial independence, the Covid-19 pandemic, the fight against terrorism, and the protection of cultural heritage. The developments in the Court’s case law are therefore assessed in the light of the question whether the European Convention on Human Rights is an instrument capable of dealing with global challenges. The analysis of the Court’s approach in this respect leads to two conclusions. First, the ECHR is an instrument which is, in itself, capable of contributing to the international management of global challenges. Secondly, and conversely, the ECHR can be also used to limit states’ powers while dealing with global challenges, with the purpose of guaranteeing that the measures adopted in this respect are in any case compatible with human rights. The Court’s 2024 case law therefore demonstrates that the ECHR is a truly ‘living instrument’ which can be adapted to ‘present-day condition’, such as the contemporary challenges faced by the international community.