Building transitional justice mechanisms without a peace settlement: a critical appraisal of the recent jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court on the Cyprus issue

On March 1, 2010, the Strasbourg Court delivered its decision in Demopoulos v Turkey. With this judgment, the Court allowed the building of what could be considered to be a transitional justice mechanism for the settlement of the property aspect of the Cyprus issue. Thus, it influenced the fragile balance in the current negotiations for the reunification of Cyprus. This article analyses this landmark judgment by tracing the reasoning of the Court to earlier case law on issues arising from the Cyprus dispute, discussing the discrepancies between the ECtHR judgment in Demopoulos and the ECJ decision in Apostolides v Orams, and referring to the political ramifications of the decision.