Leveraging norms: the ECHR and Turkey's human rights reforms

Abstract

Of the many international influences on human rights in Turkey, none are more important than the rules and norms that make up the European human rights regime. The regime is founded on the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (from here on, the Convention), which entered into law in 1953. Enforcement is provided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which opened its doors in 1959. Turkey ratified the Convention in 1954. But it was not until 1989, when Ankara accepted the binding jurisdiction of the ECHR, did Turkey become a full participant in the European regime.

Since then, more than 5,000 applications from Turkey have flooded the court’s docket. For much of the 1990s, the ECHR received more petitions from Turkey than from any other country. The number of new cases has ebbed, but the judgments continue to mount. Since 1999, Turkey has been the respondent in more cases involving the right to life (Article 2), torture (Article 3), liberty and security (Article 5), fair trials (Article 6), free expression (Article 10), free association (Article 11), and the right to an effective remedy before a national authority (Article 13), than any other country. It has been a stream of almost exclusively adverse rulings; Turkey has won only about 10 percent of the cases in which it was the respondent.

This chapter argues that despite the often rocky relations between Ankara and the ECHR, the court has taken a key role in reforming Turkey’s legal system. A review of the rulings against Ankara, together with the reforms that often followed, suggests that the ECHR has helped to legitimize a wider array of rights than those guaranteed under Kemalism. The ECHR has prompted reforms in pretrial detention, trial procedures, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly and association. The influence of the ECHR has been mixed with regard to political party closures and religious freedom, and may have been counterproductive on the question of a divided Cyprus. Its compliance with the ECHR rulings has been a material condition for Turkey’s future membership in the European Union, but the court has also provided a blueprint for real normative change.

The chapter proceeds first with an overview of the ECHR as an arbiter of European human rights norms. Next is a discussion of the clash between the liberal norms articulated by the ECHR and Turkey’s Kemalist legal culture. This is followed by a review of the politics and perceptions of the ECHR’s role in the Kurdish issue. The lengthiest section of the chapter is then devoted to Turkey’s compliance with ECHR rulings and the effect the court’s judgments have had on Turkish law and practice. The chapter ends with some reflections on the political and normative dynamics between Turkey and the European regime.