Domestic abuse and Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights: applying the Grand Chamber judgment in Kurt v Austria

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued its first judgment in a case focusing on domestic abuse in June 2021 in Kurt v Austria. This judgment has the potential to be of vital importance to the development of the Court’s jurisprudence on this issue. In this judgment, the Grand Chamber set out in detail a number of principles which should henceforth be applied by the Court when addressing the positive obligations of states under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of domestic abuse. This article seeks to analyse the extent to which the Grand Chamber’s judgment has impacted the Court’s approach in subsequent cases involving alleged violations of Article 2 in the context of domestic abuse.