Given the unprecedented medical progress combined with longer life expectancies, the right to die has become one of the main contemporary social issues. The objective of the thesis titled "The Right to Die in Light of European System of Protection of Human Rights" is to present conclusions in following matters: inclusion of the right to die in European human rights system and addressing the right to die before the European Court on Human Rights. Though the right to die can take on many forms, two basic categories of such are euthanasia and assisted suicide on one hand and withdrawal of treatment on the other. First of all, the thesis is concerned with characteristics of individual forms of the right to die. It focuses primarily on the difference between those two categories i.e. the intention of the action, for such distinction forms the basis of the European system of protection of the right to die as well as ECHR case-law. The right to die is provided for by the European human rights system to some extent. The thesis therefore focuses on the most important European acts pertinent to this area. Neither European Convention on Human Rights nor Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine establishes the right to die explicitly, yet several forms can be derived by interpreting them. Conversely, the...

The aim of this diploma thesis is the analysis of the connection between the protection of human rights to environment of the certain quality and the protection of the environment itself. The diploma thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is focused on theoretical basis of the topic, especially the relation between two areas of law - international environmental law and human rights law, concerns advantages and disadvantages of the approaches to this topic, and definitions of the most important terms, including different use of these terms by the individual authors. The second chapter outlines the evolution of these rights in the hard law and soft law universal international agreements with the overlap into the regional systems of human rights protection. The first part of this chapter relates to the documents about substantive rights and the second part examines the procedural documents with special reference to the Aarhus Convention. The third chapter analyzes the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in detail; this chapter is divided into three parts. The first one contains the explanation of the common features of decisions connected to the protection of environmental human rights. The second one describes the evolution of environmental case law connected to the...

Proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights and their reform The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and evaluate the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. This Court that exists within the Council of Europe is the guardian of guaranteed human rights and fundamental freedoms defined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Under this Convention an individual is entitled to submit an application to the Court and seek for the protection of his rights that were violated by one of the Member states. One of the conditions that ensure this protection is an effective and adequate proceedings before the Court. At present, the Court has to face many problems that are able to put this human rights protection in danger. Therefore the Member states decided to initiate a reform of the Court and its proceedings. The basic goal of this reform process is to ensure the long-term efficiency of the proceedings. This thesis analyzes the outcomes of this reform and how it affects the current proceedings. Key words: the European Court of Human Rights, proceedings, reform, workload, caseload

The issue of religious symbols in European public has become very often discussed by lawyers, politicians and sociologists as well as by the lay public. This diploma thesis is trying to contribute to these discussions by comparison of case-law of European courts in the cases concerning religious symbols. The thesis therefore analyses the legal sources providing protection of religious freedom and the individual decisions of European courts regarding the presence of religious symbols in public. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is providing the detailed analyse of the protection freedom of religion in European Convention on Human Rights and in the primary law of European Union. Then, it explains the principles of secularism and state neutrality and describes the models of relations between state and religion in Europe. The chapter two contains the introduction to the issue of religious symbols in public. The notion of "religious symbol" and "public" in the context of law is explained there. Further, it focuses on the limitations of religious symbols in public and the prohibition of concealment enacted in some of European countries. In chapter three, the cases of religious symbols in public schools are presented. The majority of European states has an interest in preserving...

La thèse est structurée en deux parties. La première constitue un résumé de la jurisprudence strasbourgeoise en matière de l’environnement. La deuxième partie porte sur le fondement théorique de la protection de l’environnement par la Convention Européenne des Droits de l’Homme à savoir la doctrine des obligations positives ainsi que sur les droits et devoirs qui, selon la jurisprudence, en découlent pour les différents acteurs. Le concept des obligations positives ne pouvant pas être appliqué sans restriction dans le domaine de l’environnement, les limites fixées par la CEDH afin de réduire les difficultés que peuvent connaître les Etats sont abordées. La question se pose aussi de savoir quelle norme conventionnelle est la mieux adaptée pour contribuer à la protection de l’environnement en application du concept des obligations positives. Ainsi, notamment l’importance de l’art. 8 CEDH et son rôle passe-partout dans le cadre des questions liées à l’environnement sont discutés. / In this thesis, the envrionmental protection through the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rightsis analysed : European court of Human Rights, environmental protection, environment

The significance of the margin of appreciation doctrine has been underscored recently with the adoption of Protocol No 15 which calls for the inclusion of the terms 'margin of appreciation' and 'subsidiarity' in the Preamble of the European Convention on Human Rights. This development reflects the disquiet amongst member States to the Convention that the doctrine is not being given enough weight by the European Court of Human Rights in the determination of cases before it. One of the interpretive tools that is perceived to be having a negative effect on the margin of appreciation is the living instrument doctrine which has been blamed for narrowing the margin of appreciation afforded to States. This thesis brings an original contribution to the literature in this area by considering the interaction between the margin of appreciation and living instrument doctrines in the case law of the Court. The contribution is achieved in two ways: (a) methodologically: through the methodology adopted which is a combination of the quantitative method of descriptive statistics and the qualitative method of doctrinal textual analysis; (b) substantively: through the systematic examination of the case law of the Court from January 1979 to December 2016 in which both the margin of appreciation and living instrument doctrines are present. The lens of the relationship between rights and duties is applied to the case analysis. The case analysis is used to draw conclusions on the nature of the relationship and whether living instrument arguments are superseding the margin of appreciation doctrine where there is conflict. The results of the case analysis also shows distinctions in the interpretive approaches of the Court at the admissibility and compliance stages. The overall results of the study show that there are a variety of ways in which interaction takes place between both doctrines and the nature of both doctrines will continue to require a close interaction between the Court and the State parties in their compliance with obligations under the Convention.

Thesis (LL.M.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Abstract This paper examines the right to family life and how it can conflict with the child’s right to protection against harm. The paper examines how the international community views the family and what rights the family has in international law.  In addition to this, the paper also looks at the different family structure a family can have and it also examine whether there are a universal definition of family. Furthermore, the paper also talks about the children and the rights afforded to them and how the rights has developed through time. The concept of childhood is a much-debated issue. There have been debates on when the childhood begins but also on when it ends and the views of the States differs somewhat. Childhood is a concept that is heavy with different psychological, physical, religious and cultural believes and practices. When the States was working on the Convention on the Rights of the Child they had to try to consolidate the different views on both the beginning and the end of childhood but it proved to be problematic. To say that the childhood began at conception would have made the convention incompatible with the national law that allows abortion and it could therefore risk that some States did not sign the convention. They therefore made a compromise that meant that the States could keep their own definition on the beginning of childhood. The family as well as the well-being of the child is important and this is reflects in international law. This paper therefore also examines the articles in international and regional treaties concerning the family and the protection of the child.  It also examines several cases from the European Court of Human Rights to illustrate how the Court has reasoned in cases where rights of the parents has been in conflict with the children’s rights and best interest. The conclusion drawn from this paper is that no set of rights weigh more than the other. They are both very important and if it is possible, the authorities shall try to balance them with each other. They have to have both what would be best for the child and the parents right to family life in mind. Even if the authorities have to remove a child from the parents care they need to have a reunification of the family as a ultimate goal to work towards.

Freedom of religion or belief is indisputable in Human rights discourse, more discussed is exactly what it is that is included in the concept of freedom of religion or belief (in Swedish: religionsfrihet). This thesis focuses on the freedom of religion or belief in a European context, in particular on the European court of human rights and article 9 in the European convention for human rights. Some criticism has been directed against the Court to the effect that its practice and verdicts don't answer to the pronounced desire to develop a pluralistic and inclusive form of freedom of religion or belief. My aim is to examine, analyse and test three different theories, which all try to develop alternatives to the expression freedom of religion or belief, in relation to six verdicts from article 9 in Europe convention. My basic purpose is to try to find new ways of talking about freedom of religion or belief that might lead to a more inclusive, pluralistic and equal interpretation of that concept. The three theories wich I use are elaborated by Richard Amesbury (associate professor at Claremont school of Theology); Hugo Strandberg (TD at Åbo Akademi) and Eberhard Herrmann (professor in philosophy of religion at Uppsala University); and Martha Nussbaum (professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago). The six cases from the European court are: X v. Federal Republic of Germany, X v. United Kingdom, Chappell v. United Kingdom, Dahlab v. Switzerland, Leyla Sahin v. Turkey, Dogru v. France. The results of this thesis suggest that the use of alternative expression to the Swedish term religionsfrihet might to a great extent lead to a more inclusive, pluralistic and equal form of freedom of religion or belief – for example in such areas as: individuality, minorities and frames of reference in society as such.

This thesis aims to analyze the property issue in the Cyprus conflict from 1974 up to 2012 based on historical and legal factors. First of all, the historical background of the Cyprus conflict will be evaluated with its different dimensions. After the EU and UN&rsquo / s involvement, the conflict internationalized and regarding the geostrategic importance of the island with the security concerns in the Middle East region the core of today&rsquo / s conflict became the property issue. In this respect, especially both the Turkish and Greek Cypriots proposals about property issue will be detailed one by one. Following that, based on these proposals the Turkish and Greek Cypriots cases to the ECHR about property issue will be analyzed. In the light of these the overall solutions to the Cyprus conflict will be evaluated.