Trapped between Courts or How European Terrorist Suspects Lost Their Right to a Remedy

Abstract

This paper analyses how the European courts refrain from providing full judicial review of lists of terrorist suspects adopted under European law. In a second part, the paper demonstrates that judicial protection could be offered under the law as it stands.

The paper is divided into four parts. Part two briefly introduces the two different types of sanctions. Part three analyses the judicial protection from sanctions originating at the UN level. Part four does the same for individual sanctions originating at the European level. Both types of sanctions are examples of multi-layered regulation originating at the UN level, followed by implementation measures at both the European and at the national level. It is argued that judicial protection should be provided before the Luxembourg and the Strasbourg courts, as well as in the national courts. Special attention is given to the question of whether the lack of judicial protection in the Luxembourg courts is in line with the settled case law of the ECJ. Part five looks briefly at the interplay between the ECtHR, the Luxembourg courts and the national courts.