“Is it Time for the Media to Intervene in Strasbourg” argues that the media community in Europe should act with urgency to make greater use of ‘third party interventions’ before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Third party interventions provide an opportunity for the media to effectively promote a legal environment that is protective of freedom of expression and the free flow of information to the public. Through third party interventions the media have the opportunity to play a major role before the Strasbourg Court, to inform it about relevant laws and precedents and to highlight issues of public interest. The article urges the media to take up this opportunity as a matter of urgency and provides practical guidance by describing the main steps that media organizations and their lawyers should take to do so. The article is also available in Ukrainian here.
The authors are Alina Pravdychenko and Vita Volodovska, lawyers in the Media Law Institute, Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law (CEDEM), Kyiv, Ukraine; and Richard N. Winfield, professor of comparative mass media law, Columbia Law School and co-chair, media law working group, International Senior Lawyers Project.