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 a number of 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: that is to say, the protection of fundamental rights of individuals.