The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Zakharov v. Russia held that the Russian system of surveillance constituted a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This decision is not the first judgment concerning surveillance, but it is of note because it is a Grand Chamber judgment in which the ECtHR drew together strands of its existing case law. It comes at a time when national systems of surveillance are the subject of much scrutiny: further cases are pending before the ECtHR.

Opinion 2/13 of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) declared the draft agreement on European Union accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) incompatible with the Treaty on European Union. The Opinion comes toward the end of a long and gradual process of incorporating human and fundamental rights principles into the legal system of the European Community and its successor, the European Union. Opinion 2/13 sends the Commission back to the drawing board on what has long been seen as the capstone of that process—EU accession to the Strasbourg human rights regime as an external check on human rights protection within the European Union.

On March 4, 2015, Singapore’s Court of Appeal issued its judgment in Yong Vui Kong v. Public Prosecutor, upholding the punishment of caning imposed on the defendant as constitutional. The decision is significant because it discusses the impact of the prohibition of torture, a peremptory norm of international law, on domestic legislation. The Court of Appeal determined that, even if caning were to be considered a form of torture, the customary international law prohibition on torture did not invalidate its domestic law permitting caning as a form of punishment.

Under the Agreement, which entered into force on November 1, 2015, France provided $60 million for payment by the United States to Americans and others for Holocaust-related claims for deportation from France. In return, the United States undertook to ensure legal peace for France with respect to such claims.

On April 29, 2015, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) adopted the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right of Anyone Deprived of Their Liberty to Bring Proceedings Before a Court (BPGs). This comprehensive and practical document is based on an extensive range of international law sources, standards, and good practice. It provides states with specific and specialized guidance on how to fulfill their international obligations to protect against the arbitrary deprivation of liberty.