DH v Czech Republic Six Years Later: On the Power of an International Human Rights Court to Push Through Systemic Change

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is often portrayed as the most developed regional human rights court, one which wields the power to influence practices in its Member States. In 2007, the Grand Chamber of the Court issued a famous ruling in the case DH v Czech Republic, which condemned discrimination of Roma children in education. The problem criticized in the DH case is of a systemic character; in order to comply with the ECtHR's judgment, the Czech Republic would have to change its whole system of primary education. In our article, we discuss the ability of an international human rights body to push through a significant change in one of its Contracting Parties. We seek to draw more general propositions from the case study of DH v Czech Republic which can be tested by further studies – we try to identify factors and circumstances which support or hinder an international human rights court in its effort of pushing through a systemic change.