Major rulings of the European Court of Human Rights on Cyprus: the impact of politics

Abstract:

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has so far issued six major judgments on Cyprus concerning the ongoing consequences of Turkey’s military intervention of 1974. Starting with the Loizidou case (1995, 1996), the rulings of the court on Cyprus v. Turkey (2001), Demades v. Turkey (2003), Eugenia Michaelidou v. Turkey (2003), Xenides-Arestis v. Turkey (2005), and Demopulos and others v. Turkey (2011) have mostly been criticized for their ‘politicized’ legal content, including by some of the judges of the ECtHR itself, through their dissenting opinions. This article attempts to demonstrate the – not always negative ‒ impact of specific political developments on the court’s rulings as well as on the attitudes of the states parties before the court, as a result of this interaction.