How much international law is too much for the European Court of Human Rights?

Photo: Lonpicman via Wikimedia Commons

Speaker: Judge Ineta Ziemele (Judge at the Constitutional Court of Latvia and former Judge at the European Court of Human Rights)

Chair: Dr Martins Paparinskis (UCL Laws)

About the talk

How much International Law is too much for the European Court of Human Rights will address the relationship between the European Convention on Human Rights and International Law with reference to some of the leading and most commented judgments such as the Demir and Beykara, Jones, Nada, Chiragov, Hassan and a few others. The lecture will attempt to provide a little more insight into the reasons and the approach that the judges of the Court take when confronted with arguments stemming from other areas of international law. Some of the practical and methodological difficulties in dealing by the Court with the rules outside the Convention system will be highlighted and discussed.

About the speaker

Dr. Ineta Ziemele has led a distinguished career as a Latvian jurist and as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights on which she served between 2005-2014. In 1993, she graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Latvia and continued her studies in Sweden at the University of Lund where she earned a Master’s degree in International Law. Subsequently, she received a PhD from the University of Cambridge gaining her title as a Doctor of Law. Moreover, Dr. Ziemele has been an adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima (Parliament of Latvia) and furthermore, to the Prime Minister of Latvia. Additionally, Dr. Ziemele has held academic positions at the following institutions: the University of Latvia, the Riga Graduate School of Law, the University of Lund, and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She is the author and editor of several book and many articles. In addition, Dr. Ziemele released a publication in 2005 titled ‘State Continuity and Nationality: Baltic States and Russia: Past, Present and Future as Defined by International Law’ which explored the relationship between two areas of international law; the first area was the variation of territorial status, and the other being the international regulation of nationality. This relationship is analyzed with specific reference to the advent of independence that occurred in the Baltic states during the 1990’s. In 2015 she was elected and took up the position of the judge of the Constitutional Court of Latvia. She is also Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Riga Graduate School of Law.