SJI continued to see the important and far-reaching results of its long-term litigation work on the international and domestic level. The Court began and then maintained a welcome change in practice as it doubled the amount of compensation awarded in each case of disappearance. RJI has expanded its staff and geographical reach, and has thus increased its capacity to effectively provide legal aid to victims of grave human rights abuses in the North and South Caucasus.
SJI succeeded in sustaining the implementation phase of its work as a central part of its mandate on the North Caucasus. Our work on implementation now allows us to systematically follow up on almost every case decided by the ECtHR with various actors on the domestic and international level, while devising particular strategies and drawing attention to cases with strong evidence. The question of implementation of judgments from the North Caucasus remained an issue of international concern, especially for the Council of Europe.
We also continued to submit cases to the ECtHR throughout the year, aiming to increase our case-load from Ingushetia and strove to build up a case-load from Dagestan.
The South Caucasus Justice Project completed its second successful year of litigation and has now lodged over 30 applications with the European Court from Georgia and South Ossetia, some of which have already reached the post-communication stage. It plans to renew its work with a continuing focus on post-conflict violations relating to arbitrary detentions and IDP issues.
