European Court of Human Rights – Beer and Regan v. Germany

The case originated from an employment dispute instituted against the European Space Agency (ESA) before German courts, dismissed on the grounds of the jurisdictional immunity accorded to ESA.

As a result, the two employees filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that Germany had violated their rights of access to justice and fair trial protected under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, since the recognition of ESA’s immunity amounted to a denial of justice.

In this leading judgment, the European Court tested the relationships between the international rules on immunity of international organizations and the right to a remedy enshrined in Article 6.

The Court reminded that the right to justice, under Article 6, is not absolute, but it might be subjected to the limitations provided by the law to pursue legitimate objective. According to the Court, immunity from jurisdiction had the legitimate objective of ensuring the proper functioning of such organisations free from external interference. However, it also underlined that ” where States establish international organisations in order to pursue or strengthen their cooperation in certain fields of activities, and where they attribute to these organisations certain competences and accord them immunities, there may be implications as to the protection of fundamental rights. It would be incompatible with the purpose and object of the Convention, however, if the Contracting States were thereby absolved from their responsibility under the Convention in relation to the field of activity covered by such attribution. It should be recalled that the Convention is intended to guarantee not theoretical or illusory rights, but rights that are practical and effective”.

In other words, States might restrict the individual right of access to domestic courts by granting jurisdictional immunity to international organizations. However, such restriction cannot determine a deprivation of justice. As held by the Court, a material factor to determine whether the granting of immunity represents an admissible limitation of the individual right to redress is the existence of alternative and reasonable means of dispute resolution.

In the instant case, the Court found that the applicants were not deprived of any mean of redress, given the existence of an internal mechanism of employment dispute settlement. In this regard, the Court affirmed that “bearing in mind the legitimate aim of immunities of international organizations, the test of proportionality cannot be applied in such a way as to compel an international organization to submit itself to national litigation in relation to employment conditions prescribed under national labour law. To read Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and its guarantee of access to court as necessarily requiring the application of national legislation in such matters would, in the Court’s view, thwart the proper functioning of international organisations and run counter to the current trend towards extending and strengthening international cooperation”.

Given the above, the Court concluded that the respondent State did not violated the applicants’ rights under Article 6.