Contracting States’ obligation

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Turning to the merits, the Grand Chamber drew a distinction between transnational cases in which a State’s failure to cooperate was examined as one aspect in the framework of a free-standing obligation to investigate under article 2 of the Convention and other cases, in which such a free-standing obligation did not arise (ibid, para 229).

In the second instance, the ‘to cooperate effectively with each phone number library other’ was premised on the ‘special character [of the Convention] as a treaty for the collective enforcement of human rights’ which ‘may, in some specific circumstances, imply a duty for Contracting States to act jointly and to cooperate’ (ibid., paras 232-233).

Actually, this reasoning is superfluous for the case of Güzelyurtlu and Others, since the Grand Chamber concluded that ‘in the present case […] a free-standing obligation to carry out an article 2-compliant investigation arose in respect of both [Cyprus and Turkey]’ (ibid, para 231), though it found a violation only in respect of the latter.