ECHR Retroactive Jurisdiction and the Possibility of Compensations for the Armenian Properties Confiscated during and after the Armenian Genocide: A Brief Analysis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0010

Keywords:

reparations, compensations, European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), European Convention on Human Rights (Convention), confiscation, abandoned property

Abstract

This article examines retroactive jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for the possibility to litigate compensations for the Armenian properties confiscated during and after the Armenian Genocide. The study considers ECtHR platform for the Armenian Genocide reparations, as ECtHR is the most effective human rights regional Court to compel Turkey to protect human rights and remedy for violations. The paper considers only European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) Article 1 Protocol 1 to avoid as much as possible politicizing this study. Considering the fact that a long time has passed since the confiscations, this study considers ratione temporis jurisdiction of the ECtHR.

Acknowledgment
This work was made possible by a research Grant (HU-hist-1289) from the Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF), based in New York, USA.

Author Biographies

Hasmik Tigranyan, Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia

Head of Anti-Corruption Monitoring Division (Department of Anti-corruption elaboration and monitoring) in the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia. Previously, she has worked in the RA State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition as a legal expert, a lawyer, then as a Chief Lawyer for nearly ten years. She received an MA at Yerevan State University and an L.L.M. at American University of Armenia.
Her scientific research relates to the issues of human rights, constitutional law, competition law, and business law (specifically transactions, mergers, and acquisitions). She is an author of three scientific articles and dozens of comparative legal analyses.
Email: hasmiktigranyan@gmail.com

Edita Gzoyan, Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation

Deputy Scientific Director at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation since 2018. She received her Ph.D. in History at Yerevan State University and an L.L.M. at American University of Armenia.
She authored more than four dozen articles and a book. Dr. Gzoyan is Armenia country editor for Central and Eastern European Review and associate editor of Ts’eghaspanagitakan handes and International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies.
Email: gzoyan.edita@genocide-museum.am

References

Hilmar Kaiser’s “Armenian Property, Ottoman Law and Nationality Policies during the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1916,” in Olaf Farschid et al, The World War I as Remembered in the Countries of the Eastern Mediterranean (Beirut: Orient-Institute Beirut, 2006).

Gözel Durmaz, “The Distribution of the Armenian Abandoned Properties in an Ottoman Locality: Kayseri (1915-18),” Middle Eastern Studies 51, no. 5 (2015): 838-885.

Bedross Der Matossian, “The Taboo within the Taboo: The Fate of ‘Armenian Capital’ at the End of the Ottoman Empire,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, Complete List (2011), at http://journals.openedition.org/ejts/4411, accessed 20.11.2019.

Uğur Ümit Üngör and Mehmet Polatel, Confiscation and Colonization: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (London, New York: Continuum, 2011).

Levon Marashlian, “Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923,” in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999): 113-145.

Kévork Baghdjian, La Confiscation, par le gouvernement turc, des biens arméniens...dits «abandonnés», (Montreal: s.n., 1987).

Levon Vartan, Հայկական տասնըհինգը և հայերու լքեալ գոյքերը [քննական ակնարկ ըստ թրքական վավերագրերու] [The Armenian 15 and the Abandoned Properties of the Armenians: Critical Commentary according to the Turkish Documents] (Beirut: Atlas, 1970).

Emre Ökmen, “Turkey: Successor or Continuing State of the Ottoman Empire?” Leiden Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (2011): 561-583.

Patrick Dumberry, “The Consequences of Turkey Being the ‘Continuing’ State of the Ottoman Empire in Terms of International Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts,” International Criminal Law Review 14 (2014): 261-273.

Factory at Chorzow (Germ. v. Pol.), 1927 P.C.I.J. (ser. A) No. 9 (July 26), para. 55.

https://www.Convention.coe.int/Documents/CP_Turkey_ENG.pdf, accessed 21.11.2019.

Frédéric Mégret, “The Notion of ‘Continuous Violations’, Expropriated Armenian Properties, and the European Court of Human Rights,” International Criminal Law Review 14 (2014): 317-331.

De Becker v. Belgium, App. No. 214/56, [1958-59] Y.B.

Case of Posti and Rahko v. Finland, no. 27824/95, Judgement, 21.05.2003, paras. 39, 40, 46; Kotov v. Russia, no. 54522/00, Judgement, 03.04.2012, paras. 63, 66, 67.

European Court of Human Rights, Practical Guide on Admissibility Criteria (Updated on 30 April 2020), p. 46, at http://www.Convention.coe.int/Documents/Admissibility_guide_ENG.pdf, 47, accessed 02.11.2019.

Blečić v. Croatia, no. 59532/00, Judgement, 08.03.2006, para. 70.

Varnava and Others v. Turkey, nos. 16 064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90, Judgement, 18.09.2009, para. 130.

Kopecký v. Slovakia, no. 44912/98, Judgement, 28.06.2004, para. 38.

Almeida Garrett, Mascarenhas Falcão and Others v. Portugal, nos. 29813/96 and 30229/96, Judgement, 11.01.2000, para. 43.

Hutten-Czapska v. Poland, no. 35014/97, Judgement, 19.06.2006, paras. 147-153.

Loizidou v. Turkey, no. 15318/89, Judgement, 18.12.1996, paras. 46-47.

Papamichalopoulos and Others v. Greece, no. 14556/89, Judgement, 24.06.1993, para. 40.

Krstić v. Serbia, no. 45394/06, Judgement, 10.03.2014, paras. 63-69.

Document A/33/10, Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Thirtieth session, 8 May - 28 July 1978, Official Records of the General Assembly, Thirty-third Session, Supplement No. 10, p. 90-97 at https://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/reports/a_33_10.pdf, accessed 30.11.2019.

Draft Articles on State Responsibility with Commentaries Thereto Adopted by the International Law Commission on First Reading (1997).

Andy Van Pachtenbeke and Yves Haeck, “From De Becker to Varnava: the state of continuing situations in the Strasbourg case law,” European Human Rights Law Review 1 (2010): 47-59.

Bottazzi v. Italy, no.34884/97, Judgement, 28 July1999, para. 22.

Report of the Commission in the case of Cyprus v Turkey, appl. no. 80007/77, DR72, p. 6.

Loukis Loucaides, The European Convention on Human Rights. Collected Essays, Nijhoff Law Specials, Vol. 70 (Leiden, Boston: Brill/Nijhoff, 2007), 17.

Agrotexim and Others v. Greece, no. 14807/89, Judgement, 24.10.1995, para.58.

Phocas v. France, no. 17869/91, Judgement, 23.04.1996.

http://ncwarmenians.org/LawsDecrees, accessed 12.05.2018.

Taner Akçam, “The Spirit of the Law: Following the Traces of Genocide in the Law of Abandoned Property,” International Criminal Law Review 14 (2014) 377-395.

Sait Çetinoðlu, “Foundations of Non-Muslim Communities: The Last Object of Confiscation,” International Criminal Law Review 14 (2014): 396-406.

http://ncwarmenians.org/LawsDecrees.

Vahé Tachjian, “An Attempt to Recover Armenian Properties in Turkey through the French Authorities in Syria and Lebanon in the 1920s,” International Criminal Law Review 14 (2014): 396-406, 350-355.

Tolerance and Non-Discrimination II Combating Discrimination against Christians,” at http://www.osce.org/odihr/124651?download=true, accessed 15.06.2019.

Downloads

Published

2020-11-25

How to Cite

Tigranyan, H., & Gzoyan, E. (2020). ECHR Retroactive Jurisdiction and the Possibility of Compensations for the Armenian Properties Confiscated during and after the Armenian Genocide: A Brief Analysis. International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, 5(1), 90–101. https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0010