Book Launch: Law of the European Convention on Human Rights (5th ed)
14 June 2023
The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) was delighted to host this event marking the publication of the latest edition of Law of the European Convention on Human Rights, published with Oxford University Press.
The roundtable discussion explored key issues arising from the evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the challenges facing the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR):
- 'UK Withdrawal from the ECHR - From Taboo (1995) to Tenable (2023)' - Dr Ed Bates (University of Leicester)
- 'Article 46 of the Convention, a Portal to Rights in Real-time' - Zoë Bryanston-Cross (Registry, Council of Europe)
- 'Reflections on the Early Days of Russian Exclusion from the ECHR' - Dr Krešimir Kamber (Registry, Council of Europe)
We were deeply honoured to have been joined by Emeritus Professor David Harris. Professor Harris co-founded the HRLC in 1993 and served as Co-Director until March 2022. He taught Public International Law at the University of Nottingham for 40 years before becoming Professor Emeritus in 2003.
Professor Olympia Bekou, Head of the School of Law and the HRLC's International Criminal Justice unit, delivered opening remarks. The event was chaired by HRLC Co-Director, Professor Sangeeta Shah.
The first edition of this seminal text was co-authored by Emeritus Professor David Harris, Mr Michael O’Boyle and Professor Colin Warbrick and published in 1995. It quickly gained recognition as the authoritative text in the area. This new fifth edition – published 28 years later - provides a fully updated, rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the work of the European Court of Human Rights and the rights protected by the ECHR.
The latest edition is co-authored by Emeritus Professor David Harris, Mr Michael O’Boyle (former Deputy Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights), Dr Ed Bates (University of Leicester) and Ms Carla M Buckley (International Human Rights Lawyer). They were joined by Krešimir Kamber, Zoë Bryanston-Cross, Peter Cumper and Heather Green.
About the Speakers
Dr Ed Bates is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leicester. He has been a co-author of Harris, O’Boyle and Warbrick, The Law of the European Convention on Human Rights for its second, third, fourth and fifth edition, (Oxford University Press, 2009, 2014, 2018 and 2023) and the author of E Bates, The Evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2010). He is currently writing a monograph entitled, ‘The European Convention on Human Rights at 75: its post-2010 transformative era - decline, further evolution, and realistic future?’ to be published by Oxford University Press (forthcoming 2024), and working with K Dzehtsiarou, A Forde, and I Risini on ‘Russia, the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights (1996-2022): A Troubled Membership and Its Legacy’ (forthcoming Bristol University Press, 2023).
Zoë Bryanston-Cross began her career working for the Government Legal Service in various government departments including for the Cabinet Office as Agent for the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. She moved to Strasbourg in 2008 to work as Head of Section in the Department for the Execution of ECtHR Judgments. In 2016 she took up a post in the European Court of Human Rights as a lawyer in the Registry and Non-Judicial Rapporteur. Then, in 2020, she moved to her current post at the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, where she is Executive Secretary to the Committee’s Human Rights meetings, and advisor on the functioning of Council of Europe monitoring bodies. She is a contributing editor to Human Rights Practice.
Krešimir Kamber obtained a Master of Laws diploma from the Rijeka University Faculty of Law (Croatia) where he also finished further studies in criminal sciences and criminal law. He obtained his PhD from the Ghent University Faculty of Law and Criminology (Belgium) after completing research in the field of human rights law and procedural criminal justice. He works as a lawyer in the Directorate of Jurisconsult of the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights. He is the coordinator for the criminal justice-related issues within the Court. He also holds the position of a postdoctoral research fellow in the Ghent University Faculty of Law and Criminology. Previously he worked in private practice and for the public prosecution service of Croatia. He has widely published and regularly gives lectures on various issues of human rights law and criminal justice. He also participates in various initiatives of the governmental and non-governmental sectors on the issues related to human rights and criminal justice.