Il contenzioso interstatale dinanzi alla Corte europea dei diritti umani quale strumento orientato alla tutela dell’interesse collettivo in tempo di pace e di guerra: evoluzione, prassi recente e (non semplici) prospettive di armonizzazione con il diritto umanitario

The present paper is aimed at broadly exploring the recent growth of inter-State litigation before the European Court of Human Rights, an underestimated but cutting-edge instrument provided for in by the Convention in light of assessing gross human rights violations. Notwithstanding, despite the current re-discovery of Article 33 ECHR, inter-State applications’ objectives and nature need a further clarification in academia, since the basic (but, perhaps, quite sibylline) wording of the Convention does not allow to understand its rationale. To this end, after having provided a general overview of the above-mentioned mechanism, the present contribution is going to assess the major challenges of the current practice. A particular eye of attention will be dedicated to the recent trend, engaged by several States of Eastern Europe, to bring before the Court applications that, as far as they concern international armed conflicts, are capable of endowing Strasbourg’s judges with a dispute settlement function, that badly fits the Convention’s main purpose of safeguarding the fundamental rights of individuals.