The Venice Commission and the Human Rights Justifications

27. 2. 2025 (9:30) CET

The HR Just project primarily focuses on how human rights arguments are used to justify various State actions. It is also however interesting to consider how States justify their departure from human rights (or rule of law) standards. Veronika Bílková builds on her experience in the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, within which she has been repeatedly involved in discussions with States.

In the first part of the presentation, she will briefly introduce the work of the Venice Commission. In the second part, four main arguments conventionally put forward by States to justify departures from human rights or rule of law standards will be identified and examined:

• Security argument

• Legitimacy argument

• Democracy argument

• Necessity argument

While these arguments are often used to shield States from justified criticism, they may have some merit, typically in the situation when a State seeks to rebuild a system after a period of human rights and rule of law backsliding.

Speaker Bio

Veronika Bílková is professor and head of the department of public international law at the Law Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and senior researcher at the Centre for International Law at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. Since 2010, she has been the member of the European Commission for Democracy Through Law of the Council of Europe on behalf of the Czech Republic. Her research focuses on the use of force, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international human rights, and the rule of law.

Report of the webinar

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