GLJ Short: Hard Protection through Soft Courts? Non-Refoulement before the United Nations Treaty Bodies - a podcast by Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal

The UN treaty bodies are often referred to as "soft courts," because their decisions are neither binding nor enforceable. When interpreting non-refoulement, does this make them more progressive than the European Court of Human Rights, a "hard court"? An analysis of over 500 decisions shows that this is not always the case. Rather, variations in the interpretation of this norm in a crowded field of international interpreters present risks for evasion of accountability, enabling domestic authorities in Europe to favor the most restrictive interpretation.

In this GLJ Shorts episode, Başak Çalı and Cathryn Costello present their and Stewart Cunningham's article "Hard Protection through Soft Courts? Non-Refoulement before the United Nations Treaty Bodies," which appeared in the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" in GLJ vol. 21:3 in April 2020. Interview by German Law Journal editor Nora Markard, editing by Marlene Stiller.

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