The general form for citing cases from the European Court of Human Rights is as follows:

Eg Mauer v Austria (1997) 25 EHRR 91 (ECHR) at 92.

Eg Svinarenko v Russia [2014] 5 ECHR 181 (Grand Chamber).

(a) Report series

Cases are reported in the Reports of Judgments and Decisions (ECHR) and the European Human Rights Reporter (EHRR).

Before 1996 the official reports were known as Series A and numbered consecutively.

Eg Johnston v Ireland (1986) Series A no 122.

Where a case is not reported, give the court identifier, application number and the date of the judgment (these can be obtained from the Court’s official database, HUDOC, at <https://hudoc.echr.coe.int>).

Eg Adyan v Armenia ECHR 75604/11, 12 October 2017.

(b) Court identifier

The court identifier for cases before November 1998 is “ECHR”.

After November 1998, the European Court of Human Rights was split into a Chamber (with five sections) and a Grand Chamber. If the case was heard before the Grand Chamber, the court identifier is “Grand Chamber, ECHR”. Otherwise, the court identifier is simply “ECHR”.

Eg Amann v Switzerland (2000) 30 EHRR 843 (Grand Chamber, ECHR).

As the Reports of Judgments and Decisions (ECHR) only publish decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, cases prior to November 1998 will require no court identifier and cases after November 1998 will only require a court identifier to identify where a case is from the Grand Chamber. Similarly, with the Series A reports, no court identifier is needed.

Eg Svinarenko v Russia [2014] 5 ECHR 181 (Grand Chamber).

Eg Johnston v Ireland (1986) Series A no 122.