Despite having been in the European human rights system for more than half a century, Turkey ranks on top of the list in terms of the number of violations and is second to Russia in the number of cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights. Why? DEMTUREUROPE seeks answers to this basic question and, by doing so, to fill a substantial gap in the academic literature concerning the "Turkey puzzle".
Premise
The project, led by Dilek Kurban, looks into the bottom-up as well as the top-down processes where the ECtHR has engaged with gross human rights abuses in Turkey’s Kurdish region since the early 1990s. Adopting a process-oriented approach and an interdisciplinary methodology which combines legal analysis and qualitative social science research, the project analyses the legacy of Kurdish legal mobilisation in Strasbourg and the impact of the court’s rulings on Turkey's policies concerning the Kurdish question.
Duration
2014 – April 2017
