Schools and the European Court of Human Rights

Patrick Casey Leisure, J.D., LL.M.

Disertační práce

Abstract:

This dissertation thesis examines the case law of the European Court of Human Rights involving human rights in primary and secondary schools. The thesis identifies, describes, categorizes, and analyzes a subset of case-law of the ECtHR, never before comprehensively considered, that the dissertation calls “Strasbourg’s schooling jurisprudence.” The thesis illustrates how an important range of disputes concerning rights to and in primary and secondary education have come before the Strasbourg Court, and how certain spheres are subject to increasingly robust standards of rights protection. The thesis argues this is best viewed as the supranational human rightsification of education. The dissertation further shows that the ECtHR does accept arguments related to the unique nature of schooling, sometimes in ways that modulate its Convention review. The school context occasionally even mediates whether and how the Court applies foundational tests, such as the Osman test. Finally, the dissertation illustrates that there are competing visions of rights protection in schooling that operate across Convention articles and issue areas—relating most significantly to age, compulsion, and the function of schools in society—which structures judicial reasoning in the case-law. The ECtHR faces a challenging balance between the local and the supranational that, it is argued, may be especially pronounced when it sets minimum standards in cases arising from local school contexts in the highly diverse educational spaces that exist across the Council of Europe.

Keywords

European Court of Human Rights, schools, students, pupils, safety, evolution, domain, children.

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 27. 7. 2026

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Obhajoba proběhla 29. 9. 2026
• Vedoucí: prof. JUDr. David Kosař, Ph.D.
• Oponent: doc. Mgr. et Mgr. Michal Bobek, MJur, JUDr. Kateřina Šimáčková, Ph.D., Prof. Veronika Fikfak

Masarykova univerzita

Právnická fakulta

Doktorský studijní program / obor:
Comparative Constitutional Law / Comparative Constitutional Law