The latest annual report from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers highlights significant progress on implementing judgments and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in 2023, whilst underlining that several important challenges remain.
According to the report, the Committee of Ministers was able to close 982 cases during the year following steps taken by member states. This includes 180 leading cases requiring specific, and often wide-ranging, measures to make sure similar human rights violations will not happen again.
Furthermore, many important advances took place – across many member states – in cases that were still pending at the end of the year.
On 31 December 2023, the total number of cases pending against member states before the Committee was 3,819, of which 1,071 were leading cases.* This figure remained relatively stable over the course of the year, despite a high number of new cases being transmitted to the Committee by the Court.
The report also highlights greater engagement in the execution process on the part of both member states and civil society in 2023. A record number of action plans/reports were submitted by member states, and the number of Rule 9 communications from civil society organisations and national human rights institutions continued to grow.
However, the Russian Federation continuing aggression against Ukraine continued to have a major impact on the system, severely affecting Ukraine’s capacity to promptly implement the Court's judgments. Nevertheless, thanks to its determination and close cooperation with the Council of Europe, Ukraine managed to close 75 cases in 2023.
In contrast, no progress was reported in any of the cases pending against the Russian Federation, which total a further 2 566 cases and so make up 40% of the Committee’s overall pending caseload. The Committee of Ministers adopted a specific strategy for dealing with those cases in 2023, which notably includes enhanced cooperation with the United Nations and civil society.
Finally, the report sets out the extensive work done to support member states through co-operation, assistance and dialogue last year, with a record number of visits and meetings with national authorities. It also stresses the clear need for member states to further reinforce domestic capacity for implementing the Court’s judgments, as underlined in the Reykjavík Declaration adopted at the Council of Europe Summit of Heads of State and Government in May 2023.
The report contains state by state statistical information on the number of new, pending and closed cases as well as details on significant developments in the execution process.
*Figures concerning the Russian Federation, which is no longer a member of the Council of Europe, have been separated from those related to member states for the first time in this year’s report.
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