How long does the past endure? ‘Continuing violations’ and the ‘very distant past’ before the UN Human Rights Committee
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Editors
Authors
Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, SAGE
ISBN
DOI
10.1177/09240519231171515
Language
en
Keywords
continuing violations, enforced disappearances, human rights committee, European Court of Human Rights, ratione temporis, distant past, historical memory, temporal scope of justice
Abstract
The concept of ‘continuing violation’ allows reviewing applications concerning effects of violations that started before a treaty came into a force with regard to a state that allegedly committed the violation. This article analyses how the UN Human Rights Committee has recently approached two communications concerning continuing violations that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s (K.K. and Others v Russia; F.A.J. and B.M.R.A. v Spain). It critiques the fact that the Committee has introduced an additional qualification to its case law on continuing violations, namely that it has no jurisdiction over the violations with continuing effect, when underlying violations happened in the ‘very distant past’. The article argues that communications raising violations of the families of forcibly disappeared persons – at least these brought by their children – should not be ruled inadmissible because of time constraint since the disappearances. Lastly, the article reveals a tacit influence of the European Court of Human Rights on the Committee in the analysed case law.
Description
Article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Citation
G. Baranowska, How long does the past endure? ‘Continuing violations’ and the ‘very distant past’ before the UN Human Rights Committee, "Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights" 2023, vol. 41, no 2, p. 97-114.