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Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

In fact, as far as I know the only European states that are not part of ECHR and Council of Europe are the Vatican (since they're a theocracy...), Kosovo since it has limited international recognition, Kazakhstan and Belarus over human rights violations.

No European state that'd be eligible has chosen to voluntarily stay outside. Azerbaijan and Russia are the closest to being in trouble of the current members (Russias voting rights were suspended over the annexation of Crimea; Azerbaijan is implicated in corruption to step criticism over Aliyev's rule).

The "European states outside the CoE club" is not exactly one to strive for membership of, to the extent even a lot of Tory MPs in favour of Brexit are opposed to leave the ECHR; David Davis in fact threatened to rebel over it at one point.

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The matter is a little more complex than this, given the EU itself is a signatory to ECHR, so indirectly via the ECJ and so forth decisions via the ECHR can affect any EU member.

Historically the ECHR has been a hugely respected Court, the shame alone of an adverse decision against a State has often been more than enough to prompt action. Most EU states have domestic legislation forcing their courts to interpret domestic statute in a manner compatible with the ECHR. Some go even further. Scotland's parliament, for example, is entirely unable to legislate in a manner incompatible with the ECHR.

In today's world, with its crumbling institutions, who knows if the 'shame' effect still means what it once did.

It's surprising to find that the ECHR does not consider same-sex marriage a human right.

>> Convention for the Protection of Human Rights

>> Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination:

>> The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status. [0]

Granted, its not about marriage, but according to the ECHR, its a human right to live free of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

[0]: https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventio...

I don't see anything about sexual orientation, just sex which would be about being male/female (possibly transexual depending on the interpretation?).

[Edit] There is this, which seems to leave it to the nations:

>>Article 12 – Right to marry

>> Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right.

Discriminating against sexual orientation isn't possible without discriminating against sex. A woman is allowed to marry a man, but a man is not.

Both man and women have the right to enter marriage, which is defined in the document as the union between Man and Women (Much clearer in the french version).

People are starting to realize that this definition is incompatible with rules against gender-based discrimination.

I am a person. And I am not starting to, at all.

I mean that there's a building legal recognition that laws against sex discrimination are incompatible with laws that discriminate against sexual orientation or gender identification. I did not mean that every single person on earth is aware of being at the start of a personal change.

That's only if you believe that discrimination (selection bias) is the same as discrimination (categorizing). There's no apparent failure of logic until you start confusing them (eg "starting to realize"). If some people are starting to believe that the definitions are synonymous, they are wrong and will have to deal with the issues that naturally occur when you confuse ideals with reality. Generally some population group suffers for another population group to be supplicated in an arbitrary way.

This isn't about the kind of discrimination being allowed. This is about which groups we apply protections to. Do you also think I'm mistaken that a law defining marriage as the union between two people of the same race is incompatible with a law forbidding racial discrimination in marriage rights?

How does Russia remain a signatory?

In most countries the same-sex marriage comes trough legislation, not from court decisions.

ECHR has ruled that relationship of two same-sex partners falls under the notion of "family life". It means equality of treatment and non-discrimination in regard to the protection of family life.

But no same-sex marriage right. I's my understanding that this is difference between individual rights and state obligations.

The ECHR was founded in 1953, at that time homosexuality was illegal pretty much everywhere. And if you look at UDHR (from 1948), There is article 16 that is kind of against same-sex marriage. But it's not very clearly stated; I don't think they even imagined that same-sex marriage could one day be a thing.

[OT] Kazakhstan is Central Asia.

I'm sure this is one of the many true reasons for Brexit, all of them hidden from the mass of people voting for it.

I think it is that we can't do anything about a vast number of serious criminals without cessation from any appearance of such laws. I know that in isolated cases the law is bluntly ignored and treated with contempt.

If you can't stop criminals without breaking the law yourself get another job. And if you have to trample human rights to do it maybe you should be right next to those criminals, getting the same treatment.

I'm sure you would quickly have a change of heart if you were subjected to the same violations.

That's a Daily Mail argument. The UK was a founder member of the Council of Europe in 1949, and the Euro Commission of HR looked heavily to the civil liberties traditions of the UK and others.

It is only the current crop of hard-Brexit Tories that have suddenly taken so against it. The previous 70 years, long before we even joined the EU or abolished hanging, managed to deal with criminals just fine without proposing leaving CoE

I doubt anyone who was aware of both expected leaving the EU would have any connection with the CoE and ECHR membership

Part of Kazakhstan is within Europe.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition

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