6 Responsibility, 6.5 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm veTicaret Anonim Sirketi v Ireland, App. No. 45036/98, European Court of Human Rights, 30 June 2005

Subject(s):

Membership of international organizations — International organizations, practice and procedure — Responsibility of international organizations

In Bosphorus the ECtHR introduced the so-called Bosphorus presumption: if a member state of an international organization acted in compliance with an obligation arising from its membership and had no discretion, there is a rebuttable presumption that the member state has complied with its obligations under the ECHR provided that the organization itself ensures a protection of fundamental rights equivalent to what the Convention requires. The Court considered that the European Union met this test. If an organization provides equivalent protection, the presumption can be rebutted, but only if this protection was manifestly deficient in the concrete case. By formulating the presumption the ECtHR showed a great deal of respect for the European Court of Justice and placed the relationship between the two European courts on relatively solid ground. A number of questions remain, however.