The absolute prohibition of torture is an unconditional and immeasurably important idea of modern constitutionalism and international human rights law. It is not merely a norm enshrined in Article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, but also the philosophical foundation of the functioning of the modern state: a…
Category: Council of Europe
Toth and Crișan v. Romania: Defining the Limits of Police Officers’ Privacy in the Age of Facebook
On 8 April 2016, two local police officers in Oradea fined a woman and her mother for leaving household waste beside the wrong bin. Within hours, the incident had left the street and entered a Facebook group with more than 24,000 members. Nine years later, the European Court of Human Rights has used that ordinary,…
“No Face, No Responsibility? International Standards for Identifying Officials and the Practice of Mobilisation Detentions
In contemporary Ukrainian public discourse, the issue of actual detentions and the use of physical force by employees of territorial recruitment and social support centers (hereinafter referred to as TRC) against men in the process of mobilisation measures is increasingly being raised. As evidenced by numerous videos recorded by eyewitnesses, TRC employees systematically conceal their…
Wartime Crisis Mode: The Impact of Russia’s Aggression on the System of Social Control in Ukraine. Presentation of the Monograph
On 28 November 2025, there will be a presentation of the monograph “Wartime Crisis Mode: The Impact of Russia’s Aggression on the System of Social Control in Ukraine (Crime, Institutes, and Trust in Criminal Justice)” We cordially invite all experts in the fields of criminal law, criminology, sociology, political science, and other areas and disciplines…
Sweden Plans to Establish Prisons for Young People Aged 13 and Above
In Sweden, offenders as young as 13 will be placed in youth prisons starting next summer. Some time ago, the government commissioned the National Prison and Probation Service to create sections in prisons for 15- to 17-year-olds who have committed serious crimes. This task is now being expanded to include 13- and 14-year-olds, according to…
France: Two Men Arrested Over Theft of Jewels at Louvre Museum
Two suspects have been arrested over the theft of precious crown jewels from Paris’s Louvre museum.The Paris prosecutor’s office said one of the men had been taken into custody as he was preparing to take a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Items worth €88m (£76m; $102m) were taken from the world’s most-visited museum last…
Rita Haverkamp, Frederik Kohler: Who Accepts What During the Crisis? Results From an Online Survey on the Acceptance of COVID-19 Protective Measures (in German)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, government emergency measures restricted fundamental rights to an unprecedented extent. Containing coronavirus infections depended entirely on the willingness of the population to comply with these rules. The acceptance of emergency measures among the population fluctuated. This raises the question of who accepts and complies with such emergency rules and under what…