ECtHR & Grand Chamber Litigation | EU Fundamental Rights | International Human Rights Strategy
Founder, Just Rights Europe | Co-Founder, Jus Cogens
Zouhaier Chihaoui is an international human rights lawyer and strategic litigator at the Brussels Bar, with more than fifteen years of experience in complex European and international human rights litigation.
He is particularly recognised for developing and leading litigation strategies in highly complex cases, where identifying the decisive human rights issue, procedural timing and the overall architecture of the case can be as important as the substantive legal arguments themselves.
His strategic approach has defined his practice from the beginning of his career.
While still a trainee lawyer, Chihaoui acted as counsel in M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, decided by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2011. The judgment became one of the landmark decisions of modern European human rights law and profoundly influenced the relationship between Article 3 of the Convention, the European asylum system and the principle of mutual trust between European States.
That early Grand Chamber experience became the foundation of a career devoted to strategic litigation in exceptionally complex human rights cases.
Chihaoui has since acted in three Grand Chamber proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights and in a Grand Chamber proceeding before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.
His experience across four Grand Chamber proceedings reflects one of the defining characteristics of his practice: the ability to identify, structure and strategically develop cases raising difficult and fundamental questions of European and international law.
Over more than fifteen years of practice, Chihaoui has developed substantial experience across almost the full spectrum of rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. His work has involved highly complex issues concerning fundamental rights, State responsibility, detention, fair-trial guarantees, protection against ill-treatment, migration and asylum, extradition, private and family life, effective remedies and other areas of Convention law.
This breadth of experience enables him to approach difficult cases beyond the limits of a single area of law and to identify Convention issues that may not be immediately apparent in the domestic proceedings.
He has handled more than 25 cases before European and international jurisdictions and has built particular expertise in cases requiring a combination of legal analysis, procedural strategy and long-term litigation planning.
Alongside his litigation practice, Chihaoui spent two years as an assistant in human rights at Ghent University, contributing to its Human Rights Legal Clinic.
In 2009, he became Co-Founder of Jus Cogens. In 2014, he founded Just Rights Europe, a practice dedicated to international human rights litigation and the strategic development of complex cases.
Today, he leads the international litigation strategy of Just Rights Europe, working on complex and high-stakes cases before European and international human rights mechanisms.
The strongest international cases are not simply filed. They are strategically built.
Domestic remedies exhausted?After a final decision of the highest national court, a case may be submitted directly to Zouhaier Chihaoui for an assessment under the Convention.
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