The Same Blind Spot: Article 18 ECHR and the Limits of the Court's Effectiveness

Pelin Baran

Introduction

The European Court of Human Rights is often described as the most effective human rights regime in the world, but it still struggles to ensure member states comply with its judgments, and compliance is not the only way the Court’s effectiveness can be assessed. 

By that measure, at the end of 2025, 3,889 cases against member states were still pending execution before the Committee of Ministers, with 1,162 cases that disclose a problem requiring new general measures, and 526 pending for more than five years. 

Looking beyond compliance asks how judgments work through a state's domestic institutions and civil society, an influence compliance figures miss. However, the channels through which a judgment matters beyond compliance depend on the very conditions compliance itself requires, independent courts and an open civic space. Where those are not present, both measures fail together. The state will not execute the judgment, and there is no free domestic space for it to work through.

Article 18 of the ECHR, which prohibits restrictions on Convention rights for ulterior purposes, is where this argument turns. A finding of a violation strongly suggests that these domestic conditions are failing, which is why an Article 18 case marks where measures of effectiveness reach their limit.

How judgments work domestically

Compliance is a reasonably traceable but imperfect measure of effectiveness. A court that sets modest expectations and issues minimal remedies may post an excellent compliance rate while changing very little, whereas ambitious remedies depress the rate because they demand more far-reaching change.

The figures also leave out the settlements reached under the Court's influence and its wider role in shaping domestic law and practice, thereby understating its real impact. So, the question shifts from whether a judgment is executed to what it actually does within the State’s jurisdiction.

The work is done via three channels. The first is agenda-setting: a ruling forces an issue onto the national agenda and makes it harder for a government to look away. The second is legitimacy: the ruling carries the authority of Europe's highest human rights court, which reformers can invoke to justify change and bring along a sceptical public. The third is mobilisation: it gives NGOs, journalists, and campaigners an authoritative finding they can use to hold the government to account and build public pressure.

When Moldova asked the Committee of Ministers to mark the Sarban v. Moldova case as resolved, a Moldovan rights group argued that the reforms had not been shown to work in practice, and the supervision stayed open. Each channel, however, depends on a domestic space where people can organise, the press can report, and an opposition can make its case in public.

Article 18 of the ECHR as the marker

Article 18 provides that restrictions permitted under the Convention “shall not be applied for any purpose other than those for which they have been prescribed.” It is meant to prevent states from limiting ECHR rights for improper ends, such as politically motivated prosecutions.

For decades, the provision was rarely usable in practice. Applicants had to supply “incontrovertible and direct proof” of bad faith, against a standing presumption that states act in good faith. Merabishvili v. Georgia changed that. The Court applied its ordinary standard of proof, beyond reasonable doubt, finding “no reason for the Court to restrict itself to direct proof … or to apply a special standard of proof” under Article 18, and allowed inferences from the surrounding circumstances (§§ 310, 314, 316-317). Where domestic courts are no longer independent, the Court may have to read the facts against their political background. Since then, the Court has found violations more regularly.

The Court confirmed the shift the following year in Navalnyy v. Russia, finding that his repeated arrests pursued an ulterior purpose under Article 18: “to suppress that political pluralism which forms part of effective political democracy” (§ 175). Russia never gave effect to the judgment, and in 2022 it ceased to be a party to the ECHR.

Cases in which violations of Article 18 are found form a recognisable pattern. The violation tends to arise in states that have eroded the independence of their courts and the space for civil society, with some no longer classed as democracies. The applicants are opposition politicians, journalists, and activists, prosecuted on charges that appear to mask a political purpose.

This can be read as a warning for the beyond-compliance approach. Where the Court has found that rights were restricted for an ulterior purpose, the conditions on which both compliance and the channels rely are compromised. Compliance fails because a judgment is only carried out if the state's own institutions choose to, or can, act. In the starkest cases, nothing is left for the channels to work through: no free press to report the ruling, no independent court to apply it, no opposition or civil society to build pressure around it.

Two objections

One might object that there are too few Article 18 findings to mark anything. Admittedly, such findings remain rare, and the Court exercises increased diligence where improper motives are alleged. Yet Article 18 violations carry particular weight as qualified violations. The scarcity of these findings limits how much of the picture they show, not their value as a warning.

A second objection is that the problem lies in judicial restraint, and that a bolder Court would close the gap. Boldness does matter, and Article 18 case law shows the Court willing to name bad faith. However, a supranational court can only go so far. Its judgments usually do not say in detail how they are to be executed, because that would reach into a state’s administrative and financial affairs, a field the Court is careful not to enter. Nor does the Court supervise execution itself: that rests primarily with the Committee of Ministers, a body that is both legal and political. A bolder judgment does not, by itself, change either of those things.

Conclusion

This is not an argument against looking beyond compliance. Where the domestic space functions well, the three channels produce effects that compliance figures miss, and the beyond-compliance approach captures them. But no single measure of effectiveness works the same way across regime types. Article 18 findings mark where that line falls. Past that line, looking beyond compliance reaches no further than compliance itself. That is the blind spot the two measures share.

Pelin Baran holds an LL.M. in Transnational Law from the University of Bremen, where her work focused on the European Court of Human Rights. 

Suggested citation: Pelin Baran, ‘Article 18 of the ECHR and the limits of the Court’s effectiveness’ IACL-AIDC Blog (3 November 2026), https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2026-posts/2026/11/3/the-same-blind-spot-article-18-echr-and-the-limits-of-the-courts-effectiveness