Abstract Remote sensing (RS), the science of gathering data from a distance through satellites, planes or drones, has been extensively employed in ocean monitoring for research and maritime security purposes. Despite the undeniable positive impact of RS on identifying existing or potential maritime security threats, its various uses may also adversely affect the enjoyment of human rights (HR) at sea. The Mediterranean Sea is no exception. An increasing number of maritime surveillance operations in the Mediterranean using RS technologies raise distinct jurisdictional challenges, particularly in relation to two categories of rights: privacy-related rights and the core rights of individuals aboard vessels, including the right to life and the prohibition of ill-treatment. Central to these jurisdictional challenges is the determination of ‘effective control’, the most pertinent threshold criterion for establishing jurisdiction under international human rights law, in cases where only virtual, rather than physical, control can be identified. This article examines the specific features of maritime surveillance using RS technologies in the Mediterranean and their impact on the enjoyment of HR, with particular emphasis on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the views of the UN Human Rights Committee. It explores the extent to which maritime scenarios arising from States’ RS practices in the Mediterranean complicate the application of these bodies’ respective approaches to jurisdiction and assesses their adequacy in addressing situations in which such practices may infringe the human rights of people at sea.
Abstract In a global climate of growing pushback against reproductive justice and increasing restrictions on abortion access, ableist legislation is re-emerging. Many jurisdictions prohibit abortion on request, reflecting conservative ideologies, while allowing it when a foetus is identified as having a disability or impairment. Although some reproductive rights campaigns treat these exceptions as strategic wins, they risk reinforcing eugenic and ableist assumptions by devaluing disability and framing it as a pathology to be prevented rather than a natural part of human diversity. This tension highlights the need to re-examine how disability liberation and reproductive justice intersect. International human rights frameworks—particularly the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—offer tools to resist these trends, such as shifting legislative language from disability-based grounds to pregnancy viability. This article explores these strategies and considers how rights frameworks can support disability-inclusive, anti-ableist reform.
Abstract Qualified rights under the European Convention on Human Rights are typically analysed as sharing a single proportionality framework. This article tests that assumption. Computational analysis of 2004 judgments across four qualified rights (Articles 8–11), one procedural right (Article 6), and one absolute right (Article 3) reveals that ECtHR judgments exhibit a stable settlement-justification architecture in which General Principles sections are systematically more formulaic and precedent-anchored while Court’s Assessment sections are more case-specific and interpretively cautious. This architecture varies across qualified rights. Article 8 stabilizes doctrine through proportionality test recitation; Articles 10 and 11 do so through democratic value formulas. Article 9 displays a suggestive pattern of low doctrinal scaffolding, though this requires confirmation in a larger corpus. This demonstrates that a right’s normative character is associated not only with whether the Court balances but also with how it constructs the doctrinal framework within which balancing occurs.
Conflicts between international investment law and human rights have become a persistent feature of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). Prevailing accounts frame these tensions as problems of normative fragmentation, to be addressed through systemic integration, proportionality, or regulatory exceptions. This article argues that such approaches misidentify the source of the conflict. It advances a property-based perspective that conceptualizes investment as socially embedded property rather than a purely economic entitlement. Drawing on Polanyi's theory of embeddedness and autonomy-centered property theory, the article shows that investment protection and human rights operate upon the same property relations while privileging opposing functions: dynamic value generation and autonomy-securing stability. From this perspective, human rights conflicts in ISDS are structural rather than incidental. Building on this diagnosis, the article proposes that the scope and intensity of investment protection should be calibrated according to the degree of an investment's social embeddedness within the host society. This embeddedness-based approach provides tribunals with a principled method to differentiate investments, integrate human rights considerations, and recalibrate protection without resorting to ad hoc balancing or hierarchical norm claims.
Abstract The caselaw of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has granted states much leeway in the area of elections, which has attracted criticism that the Commission and Court have failed to protect citizens’ electoral rights. This paper traces reform of European Parliament elections since 1979 through the lens of this caselaw by comparing outcomes of applications and charting the progress of reform since complaints were lodged. The research finds the ideational power of unsuccessful applicants often appears stronger than the Commission’s or Court’s decisions. This demonstrates the extent to which the Commission and Court have applied judicial restraint, remaining behind the tide of progress, yet the process of individual complaint appears an effective forum to set the agenda for electoral reform. The focus on European Parliament elections offers a cross-section of election caselaw and is timely as the EU’s accession to the ECHR may be more imminent. Data are drawn from the caselaw, electoral legislation, parliamentary debates, and interviews.
