European Court of Human Rights: Van Anraat v. The Netherlands

Abstract

The ECtHR case of Konovov v. Latvia, in which the ECtHR for the first time made express reference to the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law, was first decided by a ECtHR Chamber (App. No. 36376/04 (July 24, 2008)), which held, in a four-three majority, that Kononov's INTERNATIONAL LEGAL MATERIALS [VOL. 49: conviction in Latvia for war crimes committed in 1944 contravened Article 7 (retroactive application of the law) of the Convention. After Latvia had asked for a re-assessment of the case, the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR came to the opposite conclusion in its judgment of May 17, 2010, ruling, by fourteen votes to three, that there had been a sufficiently clear legal basis at the time of the events in 1944 for the crimes for which Kononov was convicted; and hence there was no violation of Article 7.

Partnerships between International Institutions and Issues of (Shared) Responsibility

“…46 (3) While it is common to articulate the various roles in a partnership, it is far less common to include express arrangements on the allocation of responsibility between the partners in a partnership.47 For instance, arrangements for nato partnerships do not contain provisions on the responsibility of the involved actors, be that other international organizations or States. 48 The answer to the question whether partners have agreed to arrangements for addressing responsibility for harm is complicated by the fact that in some cases (for instance in relation to nato), documents relating to such partnerships are not in the public domain. 49 However, there are some noteworthy examples of provisions that do articulate such rules.…”