Human rights and fundamental freedoms violations

Humanitarian Parameter

The Turkish invasion and occupation has added a major humanitarian dimension to the Cyprus issue due to the flagrant violation on the part of Türkiye of international conventions for the protection of human rights and international humanitarian law. This parameter concerns the rights of Greek Cypriot refugees, missing persons and their relatives, as well as the enclaved. It should be noted that Türkiye’s responsibility has been confirmed in a series of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that: “having effective overall control over northern Cyprus, [Turkey’s] responsibility cannot be confined to the acts of its own soldiers or officials in northern Cyprus but must also be engaged by virtue of the acts of the local administration which survives by virtue of Turkish military and other support.”

On 13 May 2014,  the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment was issued (application n.25781/94), calling on Turkey to, among other things, pay a compensation of €30 million, over the next three months, to the relatives of the Missing, and €60 million to the enclaved of the Karpas area. The ECtHR judgment also makes it clear that Türkiye continues to be bound by the Court’s judgment on Cyprus’s Fourth Interstate Application v. Turkey (2001). More specifically, it states that the Court’s judgment regarding the “Demopoulos Case” (2010), and especially that part of the  judgment that concerns the rejection of individual applications due to failure to exhaust domestic remedies, “cannot be considered, on its own, to dispose of the question of Turkey’s compliance with section III of the operative provisions of the principal judgment in the interstate case.”

In an announcement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated the Turkish side’s “inability” to comply with the judgment, which constitutes an outright violation of its international contractual obligation as a signatory party to the European Convention on Human Rights. In addition, given that ECtHR judgments are obviously part of the European acquis, Türkiye’s express refusal to implement said decisions constitutes a violation of a) its obligations as a candidate state and b) the Copenhagen criteria, which include respect for human rights.