At time of reporting, a team of eleven researchers is completing the DISSECT project.
Each of the three regional courts of human rights has its evidence regime studied in both its legal doctrinal aspects and its political underpinnings by one PhD researcher. Anne-Katrin Speck is focusing on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Genaro Manrique Giacoman on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and Edward Murimi on the African Court of Human and People's Rights.
Specific thematic aspects of evidence in international human rights adjudication are being explored by one post-doctoral fellow and four PhD researchers. Maybritt Jill Alpes is looking at the brokering of evidence related to Mediterranean pushbacks; Ruwadzano Makumbe at the promises and challenges of digital open-source evidence; Nina Kolowratnik at the way Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge can be put across in court; Nele Schuldt (FWO funded) at the encounter between science and law in climate change human rights litigation; and Emma Varnagy (whose main affiliation is to the iBOF ‘Future-Proofing Human Rights’ project) on the impact of non-evidencing police Roma abuse.
Research training has included, amongst other activities, the PhD researchers following bespoke courses on ‘Ethnographic methods of data collection’ (spring 2021, taught by Professor Jane K. Cowan) and ‘Developing academic writing skills’ (spring 2022, taught by Professor Gina Wisker).
Despite early difficulties and delays due to the Covid crisis, fieldwork has taken place or is ongoing at the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American system of Human Rights, in Ecuador in relation to the Tagaeri-Taromenane Indigenous Peoples vs. Ecuador case pending before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and at EU borders in relation to Mediterranean pushbacks. It is also planned in other locations.
On 5 July 2021, DISSECT organised a one-day webinar on ‘Evidence and Proof in Proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights’, which is giving rise to the preparation of a special issue of the European Convention on Human Rights law Review. On 2 March 2023, a symposium entitled ‘Translating Climate Science of the Human Rights Court: An interdisciplinary Encounter between Science and law’ took place in a hybrid form (University of Strasbourg and online), which had been instigated and co-organised (with Professor Elisabeth Lambert) by Nele Schuldt. On 15-16 May 2023, a symposium organised by DISSECT’s PI and post-doctoral researchers Cornelia Clocker and Deborah Casalin gathered in Ghent over 20 experts who discussed the evidentiary regime(s) of the UN Treaty Bodies.
