Síofra O’Leary, former president of the European Court of Human Rights, shared her experiences on the court and some of the wisdom she gained along the way during a recent lunchtime talk at Michigan Law. She is pictured with Professor Daniel Halberstam, who moderated the Q&A event.
By Bob Needham
Michigan Law
.
Síofra O’Leary, former president of the European Court of Human Rights, shared her experiences on the court and some of the wisdom she gained along the way during a recent lunchtime talk at Michigan Law.
The court hears disputes under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a treaty system that protects the rights of more than 700 million people across 46 countries. O’Leary was the 16th president of the court and the first woman to hold the position.
“The president can set a certain culture. In my previous role as a section president in the court, my deliberative culture was very collegiate,” she said. “I tried to preserve that culture that I had in the section, so that the Grand Chamber of the court, its largest judicial formation, continued to be a very deliberative space.”
During her tenure as president from 2022 to 2024, O’Leary presided over or managed several landmark decisions at the court, including a decision holding that Switzerland had violated the right to respect for private and family life by not adopting adequate measures to mitigate the effects of climate change; a chamber ruling that Poland had violated the former President Lech Walesa’s right to fair trial by allowing for a special form of review—long after after all ordinary appeals had concluded—in a special chamber of the Supreme Court stacked with government-friendly lawyers; and judgments holding that Russia violated the European Convention on Human Rights in a host of ways in its conflict with Ukraine.
The event, in a Q&A format, was moderated by Daniel Halberstam, the Eric Stein Collegiate Professor of Law and director of the European Legal Studies Program.
O’Leary said in her opening remarks, “I studied law in the 1980s, and I knew quite early that I wanted to specialize in European law. One of the most far-sighted—still to this day—articles written on the future direction of European Union law was written by Professor Eric Stein, of this university. Michigan features very, very highly in the minds of all European lawyers.”
O’Leary spoke as part of the Center for International and Comparative Law’s Distinguished Speaker Series. The event was co-sponsored by the U-M Donia Human Rights Center, the International Law Society, the Michigan Journal of International Law, and the Women Law Students Association.
Here are four takeaways from O’Leary’s remarks:
1. The role of a court president includes hidden challenges.
“An ordinary judge at the court has a very heavy workload. The president’s workload is triple that,” O’Leary said. But that was only the start of the challenges she faced, which included overseeing a case load of 60,000; a lack of adequate staffing; and a small budget.
Being the first woman to serve as president added another dimension. “It was a very visible thing to have a woman leading one of the two European courts,” she said. “Suddenly, you have a camera in your face every day. You have no experience of diplomacy, and you are exercising your judicial diplomacy in a very political context.
“You can destroy the reputation of the court or you can enhance it. And really, as the first female president, it was pretty clear that my objective was to enhance that reputation. Gender wasn’t central to my presidency, but gender was made central by many other observers.”
The president’s role bridges a gap between being the top official of the court but not holding authority over the individual judges. “I was nobody’s boss. I was their equal, but I had to keep the ship steady. In a deliberation, my voice counted as much as anyone else’s, but the mistakes were going to be on me,” she said.
“There is a series of predictables, and then there’s a whole series of unpredictables, and you have to deal with that. You’re dealing with micro issues—such as reduced heating in offices due to oil and gas prices rising after the invasion of Ukraine—and you’re dealing at the same time with a historical Fourth Council of Europe summit or climate change.”
2. There’s value in international court proceedings even if one of the states won’t cooperate.
Speaking about a group of cases the court heard involving Ukraine and Russia, O’Leary said she was often asked, “Why bother?”—because Russia would likely ignore the court’s judgment, given that Russia was no longer part of the Council of Europe or the ECHR.
Her answer, in part, was that if the court did nothing in such a case, the state would be allowed to walk away from its international obligations, even retroactively.
In addition, court proceedings can establish the facts of the situation.
“You’ve witnessed how the origins of this conflict and its progression have been deliberately distorted by what I’m going to call certain actors,” she said. “The advantage of the judicial process, even if the effects of it are long and historic, is that you have the establishment by a judicial body of facts. That’s a very precious thing in today’s world.”
3. Remedies may not be the point.
In response to a question, O’Leary said that remedies available to the court may be seen as weak, particularly considering financial damages. “Compared to what you’d get before a common law court in the U.S. or Ireland or the U.K.—you don’t go [to the European Court of Human Rights] to make money,” she said. “That’s true for many countries. But remember, 2000 euros in Ukraine is a lot of money. The pocket and the purse are very different from one place to the next.”
In any event, she said, the essence of a judgment—and its execution under the oversight of the Council of Europe and its Council of Ministers—are ultimately more significant.
“The value of what the court does is not dependent on the judicial remedies,” she said. “These are declaratory judgments. Their purpose is to provide individual justice but also to lay down general principles that apply beyond the case. That’s the value.”
4. The U.S. might learn from Europe.
Asked what advice she has for residents of the U.S., O’Leary focused on civic education. Recalling a case in Germany of a teacher removed from a state list of eligible teachers due to neo-Nazi ties, she emphasized the importance of teaching “about the value of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Voting is a right, but it is a tremendous privilege, and it’s an even greater responsibility. So start [education about these matters] early, and continue at university.”
Also, she said, “Understand how democracy works and how it fails, and then work on reform in more peaceful times. Protest works. Your voice can be heard. It’s difficult to do, as we have seen in this jurisdiction, but protest is very, very important.”
“Your debate is extremely polarized,” she added. “But the other side to whatever yours is may have some good points to make. Listen to them. You have to keep talking. And don’t lose hope, because democracy depends on that.”
Michigan Law
.
Síofra O’Leary, former president of the European Court of Human Rights, shared her experiences on the court and some of the wisdom she gained along the way during a recent lunchtime talk at Michigan Law.
The court hears disputes under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a treaty system that protects the rights of more than 700 million people across 46 countries. O’Leary was the 16th president of the court and the first woman to hold the position.
“The president can set a certain culture. In my previous role as a section president in the court, my deliberative culture was very collegiate,” she said. “I tried to preserve that culture that I had in the section, so that the Grand Chamber of the court, its largest judicial formation, continued to be a very deliberative space.”
During her tenure as president from 2022 to 2024, O’Leary presided over or managed several landmark decisions at the court, including a decision holding that Switzerland had violated the right to respect for private and family life by not adopting adequate measures to mitigate the effects of climate change; a chamber ruling that Poland had violated the former President Lech Walesa’s right to fair trial by allowing for a special form of review—long after after all ordinary appeals had concluded—in a special chamber of the Supreme Court stacked with government-friendly lawyers; and judgments holding that Russia violated the European Convention on Human Rights in a host of ways in its conflict with Ukraine.
The event, in a Q&A format, was moderated by Daniel Halberstam, the Eric Stein Collegiate Professor of Law and director of the European Legal Studies Program.
O’Leary said in her opening remarks, “I studied law in the 1980s, and I knew quite early that I wanted to specialize in European law. One of the most far-sighted—still to this day—articles written on the future direction of European Union law was written by Professor Eric Stein, of this university. Michigan features very, very highly in the minds of all European lawyers.”
O’Leary spoke as part of the Center for International and Comparative Law’s Distinguished Speaker Series. The event was co-sponsored by the U-M Donia Human Rights Center, the International Law Society, the Michigan Journal of International Law, and the Women Law Students Association.
Here are four takeaways from O’Leary’s remarks:
1. The role of a court president includes hidden challenges.
“An ordinary judge at the court has a very heavy workload. The president’s workload is triple that,” O’Leary said. But that was only the start of the challenges she faced, which included overseeing a case load of 60,000; a lack of adequate staffing; and a small budget.
Being the first woman to serve as president added another dimension. “It was a very visible thing to have a woman leading one of the two European courts,” she said. “Suddenly, you have a camera in your face every day. You have no experience of diplomacy, and you are exercising your judicial diplomacy in a very political context.
“You can destroy the reputation of the court or you can enhance it. And really, as the first female president, it was pretty clear that my objective was to enhance that reputation. Gender wasn’t central to my presidency, but gender was made central by many other observers.”
The president’s role bridges a gap between being the top official of the court but not holding authority over the individual judges. “I was nobody’s boss. I was their equal, but I had to keep the ship steady. In a deliberation, my voice counted as much as anyone else’s, but the mistakes were going to be on me,” she said.
“There is a series of predictables, and then there’s a whole series of unpredictables, and you have to deal with that. You’re dealing with micro issues—such as reduced heating in offices due to oil and gas prices rising after the invasion of Ukraine—and you’re dealing at the same time with a historical Fourth Council of Europe summit or climate change.”
2. There’s value in international court proceedings even if one of the states won’t cooperate.
Speaking about a group of cases the court heard involving Ukraine and Russia, O’Leary said she was often asked, “Why bother?”—because Russia would likely ignore the court’s judgment, given that Russia was no longer part of the Council of Europe or the ECHR.
Her answer, in part, was that if the court did nothing in such a case, the state would be allowed to walk away from its international obligations, even retroactively.
In addition, court proceedings can establish the facts of the situation.
“You’ve witnessed how the origins of this conflict and its progression have been deliberately distorted by what I’m going to call certain actors,” she said. “The advantage of the judicial process, even if the effects of it are long and historic, is that you have the establishment by a judicial body of facts. That’s a very precious thing in today’s world.”
3. Remedies may not be the point.
In response to a question, O’Leary said that remedies available to the court may be seen as weak, particularly considering financial damages. “Compared to what you’d get before a common law court in the U.S. or Ireland or the U.K.—you don’t go [to the European Court of Human Rights] to make money,” she said. “That’s true for many countries. But remember, 2000 euros in Ukraine is a lot of money. The pocket and the purse are very different from one place to the next.”
In any event, she said, the essence of a judgment—and its execution under the oversight of the Council of Europe and its Council of Ministers—are ultimately more significant.
“The value of what the court does is not dependent on the judicial remedies,” she said. “These are declaratory judgments. Their purpose is to provide individual justice but also to lay down general principles that apply beyond the case. That’s the value.”
4. The U.S. might learn from Europe.
Asked what advice she has for residents of the U.S., O’Leary focused on civic education. Recalling a case in Germany of a teacher removed from a state list of eligible teachers due to neo-Nazi ties, she emphasized the importance of teaching “about the value of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Voting is a right, but it is a tremendous privilege, and it’s an even greater responsibility. So start [education about these matters] early, and continue at university.”
Also, she said, “Understand how democracy works and how it fails, and then work on reform in more peaceful times. Protest works. Your voice can be heard. It’s difficult to do, as we have seen in this jurisdiction, but protest is very, very important.”
“Your debate is extremely polarized,” she added. “But the other side to whatever yours is may have some good points to make. Listen to them. You have to keep talking. And don’t lose hope, because democracy depends on that.”
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