How the European Court of Human Rights became more accessible to Ukrainians and why it matters
The Knowledge-Sharing Platform of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is now available in three additional languages that are not official Council of Europe languages: Ukrainian, Romanian, and Turkish.
This expansion provides native-language access to a unique resource that was previously only available in English and French.
Read more to understand why Ukrainians have been granted broader access to the ECtHR’s knowledge base and why this is crucial for Ukraine in the column by ECtHR Judge Mykola Gnatovskyy and First Deputy Head of the Supreme Court Apparatus, Rasim Babanly – Human rights without a language barrier: what the ECtHR Knowledge-Sharing Platform means for Ukraine.
Over its more than 65 years of work, the European Court of Human Rights has addressed a vast range of societal issues.
As the authors note, some of these issues, such as social media and climate change, did not even exist in the past. Because of this, the Court occasionally clarifies or, in rare cases, modifies its legal positions.
Since keeping up with the Court’s case law, and understanding its rulings, can be challenging, the ECtHR has developed new tools to simplify access to its decades of accumulated legal knowledge. These resources provide a structured understanding of the Court’s practices.
"For Ukraine and its legal professionals, the challenge was that these materials were only partially translated into Ukrainian," Gnatovskyy and Babanly point out.
Now, they are confident that the situation will change: ECtHR information will be systematically translated.
"The choice of languages for the initial translations was not random. They correspond to the countries with the highest number of complaints filed with the ECtHR: Türkiye, Ukraine, and Romania," the column explains.
The authors emphasise that improved access to ECtHR case law will help ensure compliance in Ukraine with the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
At the same time, Gnatovskyy and Babanly stress that the primary responsibility lies with the Ukrainian state – its institutions, particularly the courts, which must apply the Convention and the ECtHR’s legal positions in their work.
"This highlights the shared responsibility of national and European institutions in protecting human rights, the existence of a common legal space, and the development of a unified European legal culture," they state.
According to them, removing language barriers facilitates the seamless spread of this legal culture across different legal systems, making the path to upholding human rights much shorter.
"The development of such a legal culture in Ukraine is a key factor in its European integration. Access to the Platform in Ukrainian can significantly contribute to this process," the authors conclude.
The initiative to translate the Knowledge-Sharing Platform is the result of cooperation between the European Court of Human Rights and Ukraine’s Supreme Court.