Gender Discrimination Cases at the European Court of Human Rights: Why So Few?

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Russian citizens whose rights have been violated at home have appealed tens of thousands of cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which rules on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But only three of the Russian cases that have reached a judgment from the ECtHR have included gender discrimination claims, and all three of these cases were brought by men, not women. This chapter briefly discusses the domestic and international barriers to bringing gender discrimination complaints to Russian courts and to the ECtHR. The chapter also introduces our cross-national and cross-issue comparison cases: discrimination against women in Turkey, and against the LGBT community in Russia and Turkey, and court cases on these issues in Russia, Turkey, and at the ECtHR. The chapter includes our methodology (a description of our research process and our interviewees in both countries) and a brief explanation of how the ECtHR works. The chapter summarizes our findings as to what enables legal victories in domestic and international courts on gender discrimination cases: activism requires activists; winning cases requires legal expertise on discrimination cases (which is often lacking); winning discrimination cases requires systematic data proving a pattern of bias; winning cases is contagious, in that winning a legal victory on one issue (such as domestic violence) leads to further legal victories on that issue. Chapter 1 also includes summaries of the rest of the book’s chapters.