Twenty Years of the ECHR in Ukraine

Abstract

Twenty years ago, in September 1997, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) entered into force for Ukraine. By ratifying the Convention, Ukraine recognised the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). While Ukraine had been a party to a number of the international human rights instruments, joining the ECHR had a special significance. It symbolised a European choice of Ukraine, a final breakaway from the Soviet past, and (at least on paper) the acceptance of the European values of democracy and respect for human rights. Making the determination to join the Council of Europe (CoE) and its fundamental legal instruments, however, was easier than to maintain Ukraine’s international obligations in practice.

This short paper will start with a brief review of the statistics regarding the current situation, in particular the ECtHR case law concerning Ukraine. Then, we will focus on the reasons why Ukraine is still one of the laggard states in terms of the numbers of applications and violations to the ECtHR. Further, we will discuss the impact of the ECHR and the ECtHR case law on the Ukrainian legal system, highlighting some positive examples. We will also analyse a somewhat surprisingly optimistic attitude towards the Court prevailing in Ukraine, especially in the context of a growing anti-Strasbourg sentiment in a number of the CoE states. We will conclude our short paper with examining why Ukraine needs to do more in terms of the implementation of the ECHR and why it is important to the ECtHR that Ukraine succeeds in these efforts.

Keywords: Ukraine, European Convention on Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights, human rights, compliance, implementation