Protection of the right to the peaceful enjoyment of property, guaranteed under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is of fundamental importance for the Western Balkans. To tackle important issues and challenges surrounding the right to the peaceful enjoyment of property, the online regional conference “Protection of property: European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and national case-law in the Western Balkans” took place on 9 December 2020 to provide a platform for discussion and exchange among the legal professionals from the Western Balkans.

During the event the participants discussed the general standards applied to concrete cases, as well as the situation of the execution of the ECtHR judgments as regards to property rights.

The keynote speakers were former and current lawyers of the Registry of the ECtHR, lawyers from the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the ECtHR, judges and senior advisors to the superior and higher national courts and international experts in the field of protection of property.

The European Court of Human Rights in its case-law established well-defined approaches on what the right to property includes, and what remedies should be available in order to secure it. Still, the autonomous meaning of the concept of “possessions” as applied by the ECtHR does not always correspond to the definitions of property in national legislation. This may create difficulties for national courts to coherently apply the ECHR in this respect.

The conference will be followed by a report which will be published in early 2021.

The activity was organised within the action “Initiative for the legal certainty in the Western Balkans”, implemented in the framework of the joint programme of the European Union and the Council of Europe “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.