6 Responsibility, 6.7 Gasparini v Italy and Belgium, App. No. 10750/03, Admissibility Decision, European Court of Human Rights, 12 May 2009

Subject(s):

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

The significance of Gasparini lies in the manner in which it applies the Bosphorus presumption to an organization (NATO) that is not the European Union. Furthermore it introduces important distinctions regarding the requirement of state involvement as a precondition for an alleged violation to have arisen within the jurisdiction of the respondent state. Refining some of its earlier case law (Connolly and Boivin), the ECtHR drew a line between actual decisions by the organization and deficiencies in the protection of fundamental rights, rooted in a structural lacuna of the internal mechanism for conflict resolution. Where a structural lacuna exists, the violation is attributable to the member state even though organs of the respondent member state were not immediately involved in the violation.