Do the “Underlying Values” of the European Convention on Human Rights Begin in 1950?

Prior to its ruling in Janowiec and Others v. Russia, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights had recognised a “humanitarian exception” to the general rule by which the procedural obligations imposed by articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention only arise if the substantive violation of the Convention occurs after the entry into force of the Convention for the respondent State. In Janowiec, the Court was invited to apply this “humanitarian exception” to one of the great unpunished atrocities perpetrated on European soil in the past century. The Court declined to do so, mechanistically imposing its own temporal limitation on the “humanitarian exception” by which the substantive violation of the right to life and the prohibition of ill treatment must take place after the adoption of the Convention on 4 November 1950. The essay concludes that this limitation is questionable, that the reasoning behind it is dubious, and that the result is a regrettable confirmation of a situation of impunity.