Towards a coherent application of Human Rights Law in Europe
New Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz: Postdoctoral researcher Dr Nasiya Daminova specialises in European Human Rights Law. With funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, she will address the specific challenge of offering suggestions for a coherent European judicial policy in the area of due process rights.
Nasiya Daminova has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz since December 2019. Her two-year stay at the university, which is financed through an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, is hosted by Professor Marten Breuer, Professor of Public Law with Focus on International Law at the university’s Department of Law.
Exploring judicial dialogue between the two European Courts
At the University of Konstanz, Daminova is pursuing a research project entitled “The European Court of Human Rights on EU Law: The quest for a coherent application of Human Rights Law in Europe?”. The main research focus is on the judicial dialogue between two European Courts: The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg (CJEU) – the supreme judicial body of the European Union primarily aimed at the realisation of the economic integration of the European Union Member States – and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR), whose task it is to protect Human Rights across Europe based on the European Convention on Human Rights.
In her PhD thesis, Daminova already examined the impact the European Convention on Human Rights has had on CJEU jurisprudence, with a special focus on due process rights, from the perspective of the CJEU. Due process encompasses the right to a fair trial, to an effective remedy and not to be tried or punished twice as well as the principles of legal certainty and non-retroactivity. Her postdoctoral project takes the opposite perspective – that of the ECtHR – in order to offer comprehensive suggestions for coherent judicial policy in this area. “As part of my current project, I am analysing recent ECtHR case-law with an EU Law component, paying particular attention to the areas of asylum law and judicial cooperation in criminal and civil matters”, she explains. The main research objective is to investigate how the Treaty of Lisbon provisions and the CJEU case law influenced the Strasbourg doctrines in the area of due process provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. “This topic seems to be very pertinent in view of the European Union’s obligation to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights, the ongoing EU reform of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and the emerging refugee crisis in Europe”, Daminova explains.
Choosing Konstanz
“I have chosen the University of Konstanz because of Professor Breuer’s prominent work in the area of European Human Rights and Public International Law”, Daminova says about continuing her research in Germany. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to him and the staff at the Department of Law for supporting my research here in Konstanz to such an extraordinary degree.” Nasiya Daminova also enjoys having access to the comprehensive ECHR/EU Law book collections housed in the University of Konstanz’s library. These collections, alongside the European Documentation Centre, are helping her complete the empirical stage of her project in a timely manner: “Thanks to these resources, I am able to select and order up the pertinent Strasbourg case-law as well as the relevant commentary whenever I need them”, she explains. “Even very recent volumes are available from the library – that’s a huge relief”. During her stay in Konstanz, Nasiya Daminova is planning to prepare a draft for a monograph as well as several additional publications which she hopes to publish in due course.
About Nasiya Daminova
Nasiya Daminova holds an LL.M in European Law from Stockholm University (2014) and a PhD in Transnational and Comparative Law from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (2018). Prior to moving to Konstanz, she spent one year as a postdoctoral researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.