Concurrent Applications Before the European Court of Human Rights: Coordinated Settlement of Massive Litigation From Separatist Areas

Abstract

“Concurrent applications” are defined as applications filed with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by several individuals and/or a State or States concerning the same factual context, and directed against one or several States, while a substantially analogous matter has already been submitted to one or more other procedures of international investigation or settlement. The present paper submits that the settlement of concurrent applications from separatist areas is feasible through the strategic use of existing procedural tools of the ECtHR without introducing a separate mechanism or further constitutionalizing the Convention to the detriment of individual justice. The Court should settle such concurrent applications in a coordinated way, taking into account the interconnected legal and factual background as well as procedural and substantive law questions of concurrent cases in individual procedures. Each case having its own factual specificities, the broader context and legal background make the concurrent applications interconnected.

Keywords: concurrent applications, European Court of Human Rights, lis pendens, res judicata, good administration of justice, procedural economy