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Krassimir Kanev, the chairman of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee​, analyses the role of human rights in the Bulgarian government's Programme for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

In September 2017, the CNRS (Laboratories SAGE (Strasbourg) and CESDIP (Saint Quentin en Yvelines)) and the European Prison Litigation Network launched together with partner universities and NGOs from nine European countries a research project on the protection of fundamental rights and access to legal aid for remand prisoners in the European Union. This project is funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme for eighteen months.

On 20 December 2017, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will hear the case of Beuze v Belgium. Its decision in this case will have wide-ranging effects on the right to early access to a lawyer in criminal cases across Europe.

We, members of the Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP), believe that restricting civil society participation in the work of the OSCE would be a tremendous setback for the Helsinki process and a betrayal of the spirit and founding values of this unique peace advancement initiative.

“The judgment is a success for the court itself, showing independence in a political environment currently dominated by racist narratives of the worst kind,” said Margarita Ilieva, director of Bulgarian Helsinki Committee’s Legal Program.

Liberties and EDRi initiated an open letter asking the Members of the European Parliament to withdraw Article 13 from the draft Copyright Directive. The letter was signed by 57 human rights and digital rights organisations.

In the run-up to the annual conference and general meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) in Beijing, China, the undersigned civil society organisations urge the IAP to live up to its vision and bolster its efforts to preserve the integrity of the profession.