Hanan v Germany – Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (application no. 4871/16)
26th February 2020
- European Court of Human Rights
- Pending
- Article 2, Jurisdiction
- Intervenor
The facts of the case
In this casebefore European Court of Human Rights, which concerned aninvestigation into anairstrike in Afghanistan that killed theApplicants two sons, RSI intervened on behalf of the Applicant. The two Afghan brothers,aged8 and 12,were killed in an air-strike ordered by the German Government on 4 September 2009. It is estimated that between 14 and 142 Afghans died in the strike, of whom 14 to 113 were civilians.
The significance ofHanan v. Germanyrests on two main questions.The first iswhethertheEuropean Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention) appliestothe armed forces of Member States deployed abroadunder Article 1.For this reason
Supporting Documents
- were given leave to intervene in the case. The secondquestionpertains to Germanys investigation into the airstrike
- RSI argued thatthat the Court shouldapply au201cfunctionalapproachto jurisdiction.This would entail a finding that jurisdiction exists for the purposes of the applicability of the Convention whereit is within a states power to perform certain functions that are consistent with their ratification of the Convention u2013 the protectionof human rights
- etc.<br />t</li>t<li>The nature and scope of states duties to investigate violations of the right to life ininternational law. RSI submitted that regardless of the co-application ofinternationalhumanitarianlaw
- and demands the same key hallmarks as found in the Courts jurisprudence.<br />t</li>t<li>The nature and scope of the states duties to provide effective remedies for rights violations generally in international law
- starting with oral submissions by parties as well as submissions by third party interveners France