European Implementation Network launches

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Judgment Watch and Open Society Institute, together with academics and human rights advocates, have created the European Implementation Network.

The Network was registered at Strasbourg in the beginning of 2017 and currently has 16 members from across Europe. The initiative is a response to the growing problem of Member States failing to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights or implementing such judgments in an ineffective way. At the end of 2015, a total of 10650 judgments remained unimplemented, including 346 judgments issued against Poland.

The Network’s mission is to expand the role of non-governmental organisations and individual lawyers in the Committee of Ministers’ works on individual cases and solving systemic problems. The EIN’s tasks include supporting communication between institutions of the Council of Europe and non-governmental organisations acting for human rights in Member States. The Network’s activities may be followed in its monthly newsletter.

In December 2016, the EIN’s constitutive General Assembly appointed Professor Basak Cali (Center for Global Public Law, Koç University, Istanbul) as Chair of the EIN Bureau. Professor Philip Leach (European Human Rights Advocacy Center) was elected Vice-Chair, and Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska (Member of the HFHR Board) was appointed as Secretary.