The European Convention on Human Rights is now crucial to decisions to be taken by the military and their political leaders in ‘hard power’ situations – that is, classical international and non-international armed conflict, belligerent occupation, peacekeeping and peace-enforcing and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations, but also hybrid warfare, cyber-attack and targeted assassination. Guidance is needed, therefore, on how Convention law relates to these decisions. 

That guidance is precisely what this book aims to offer. It focuses primarily on States’ accountability under the Convention, but also shows that human rights law, used creatively, can actually help States achieve their objectives.



Peter Kempees (1959), PhD (2019, Leiden), practised law in The Hague until joining the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights in 1992. His published works include, among others, the four-volume A Systematic Guide to the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights (Nijhoff, 1996-2000) and the monograph Thoughts on Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights(Wolf Legal Publishers, 2017).



Table of Contents



1. Introduction

2. Problems of Substantive Convention Law in Relation to 'Hard Power'

3. Interplay between te Convention and International Humanitarian law

4. Derogation 220

5. Jurisdiction of the Contracting States

6. Typology of Article 1 Jurisdiction in 'Hard Power' Situations

7. Jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights

8. Attribution

9. Summary and Conclusions