European Court of Human Rights in the context of "Human rights in Russia"

Strasbourg (UK: /ˈstræzbɜːrɡ/ STRAZ-burg, US: /ˈstrɑːsbʊərɡ, ˈstrɑːz-, -bɜːrɡ/ STRAHSS-boorg, STRAHZ-, -⁠burg; French: [stʁasbuʁ] ; German: Straßburg [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊʁk] ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin department and the official seat of the European Parliament.

The city has about three hundred thousand inhabitants, and together Greater Strasbourg and the arrondissement of Strasbourg have over five hundred thousand. Strasbourg's metropolitan area had a population of 860,744 in 2020, making it the eighth-largest metro area in France and home to 14% of the Grand Est region's inhabitants. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of roughly 1,000,000 in 2022. Strasbourg is one of the de facto four main capitals of the European Union (alongside Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt), as it is the seat of several European institutions, such as the European Parliament, the Eurocorps and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. An organization separate from the European Union, the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines most commonly known in French as "Pharmacopée Européenne", and its European Audiovisual Observatory) is also located in the city.

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights or ECHR) is a supranational international treaty designed to protect human rights and political freedoms throughout Europe. It was opened for signature on 4 November 1950 by the member states of the newly formed Council of Europe and entered into force on 3 September 1953. All Council of Europe member states are parties to the Convention, and any new member is required to ratify it at the earliest opportunity.

The ECHR was directly inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. Its main difference lies in the existence of an international court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), whose judgments are legally binding on states parties. This ensures that the rights set out in the Convention are not just principles but are concretely enforceable through individual complaint or inter-state complaint procedures.

The Russo-Ukrainian war began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied Crimea and annexed it from Ukraine. It then supported Russian paramilitaries who started a war in the eastern Donbas region against Ukraine's military. In 2018, Ukraine declared the region to be occupied by Russia. The first eight years of conflict also involved naval incidents and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and began occupying more of the country, starting the current phase of the war, the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has resulted in a refugee crisis and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

In early 2014, the Euromaidan protests led to the Revolution of Dignity and the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Shortly after, pro-Russian protests began in parts of southeastern Ukraine, while unmarked Russian troops occupied Crimea. Russia soon annexed Crimea after a highly disputed referendum. In April 2014, Russian-backed militants seized towns and cities in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as independent states, starting the Donbas war. Russia covertly supported the separatists with its own troops, tanks and artillery, preventing Ukraine from fully retaking the territory. The International Criminal Court (ICC) judged that the war was both a national and international armed conflict involving Russia, and the European Court of Human Rights judged that Russia controlled the DPR and LPR from 2014 onward. In February 2015, Russia and Ukraine signed the Minsk II agreements, but they were never fully implemented in the following years. The Donbas war became a static conflict likened to trench warfare; ceasefires were repeatedly broken but the frontlines did not move.

Dispute resolution or dispute settlement is the process of resolving disputes between parties. The term dispute resolution is conflict resolution through legal means.

Prominent venues for dispute settlement in international law include the International Court of Justice (formerly the Permanent Court of International Justice); the United Nations Human Rights Committee (which operates under the ICCPR) and European Court of Human Rights; the Panels and Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization; and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Half of all international agreements include a dispute settlement mechanism.

After World War I, the effort to prosecute Ottoman war criminals was taken up by the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and ultimately included in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government organized a series of courts martial in 1919–1920 to prosecute war criminals, but these failed on account of political pressure. The main effort by the Allied administration that occupied Constantinople fell short of establishing an international tribunal in Malta to try the so-called Malta exiles, Ottoman war criminals held as POWs by the British forces in Malta. In the end, no tribunals were held in Malta.

Taner Akçam states that protecting war criminals from prosecution became a key priority of the Turkish nationalist movement. According to European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello the suspension of prosecutions, the repatriation and release of Turkish detainees was amongst others a result of the lack of an appropriate legal framework with supranational jurisdiction, because following World War I no international norms for regulating war crimes existed. The release of the Turkish detainees was accomplished in exchange for 22 British prisoners held by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, with migrants moving from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and other imposed sanctions.

Asylum seekers denied asylum may face impediment to expulsion if the home country refuses to receive the person or if new asylum evidence emerges after the decision. In some cases, these people are considered illegal aliens. In others, they may receive a temporary residence permit, for example regarding the principle of non-refoulement in the International Refugee Convention. The European Court of Human Rights, referring to the European Convention on Human Rights, has shown in a number of indicative judgments that there are enforcement barriers to expulsion to certain countries, for example, due to the risk of torture.

Omar Mahmoud Othman (Arabic: عمر بن محمود بن عثمان, romanized: 'Umar ibn Maḥmūd ibn 'Uṯmān; born 30 December 1960), better known as Abu Qatada al-Filistini (/ˈɑːbuː kəˈtɑːdə/ AH-boo kə-TAH-də; Arabic: أبو قتادة الفلسطيني, romanized: 'Abū Qatāda al-Filisṭīnī), is a Jordanian Salafi cleric. Abu Qatada was accused of having links to terrorist organisations and frequently imprisoned in the United Kingdom without formal charges or prosecution before being deported to Jordan, where he was acquitted of multiple terrorism charges.

Abu Qatada claimed asylum in the United Kingdom in 1993 on a forged passport. In 1999, he was convicted in absentia in Jordan of planning thwarted terror plots during Jordan's millennium eve and was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment with hard labour. Abu Qatada was repeatedly imprisoned and released in the United Kingdom after he was first detained under anti-terrorism laws in 2002 but was not prosecuted for any crime. The Algerian government described Abu Qatada as being involved with Islamists in London and possibly elsewhere. After initially barring the United Kingdom from deporting Abu Qatada to Jordan, in May 2012 the European Court of Human Rights denied him leave to appeal against deportation.

The 2006 deportation of Georgians from Russia refers to the deaths, unlawful arrests, expulsions and overall mistreatment of several thousand ethnic Georgians by the Russian government during the 2006 Georgian–Russian espionage controversy. The official Russian position was that Georgians in question violated the Russian immigration law and that their expulsion and treatment in custody was just standard law enforcement. The Georgian government countered that Russia's concerted actions against ethnic Georgians, including properly documented individuals, was an act of political retribution for the arrest of Russian spies and was tantamount to "mild form of ethnic cleansing". Georgian claims were supported by the Human Rights Watch, which documented "the Russian government's arbitrary and illegal detention and expulsion of Georgians, including many who legally lived and worked in Russia..." Georgia subsequently sued the Russian Government in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Russian human rights defenders widely criticized the move. Human Rights Center "Memorial" demanded to immediately stop the campaign against people born in Georgia. Radio "Echo of Moscow" started a campaign "I am a Georgian", calling for Russian citizens to wear a badge with such a sign in solidarity.