European Roma Rights Centre

Marek Szilvási speaks on behalf of the ERRC at the European Commission in Brussels in 2015.

The ERRC is active in impact litigation (also called strategic litigation). Since its inception, the ERRC has taken over 1000 cases relating to Roma Rights, and currently has over one hundred pending in national and international courts. The ERRC's legal work takes different forms including the provision of direct legal representation and support to Romani litigants. The ERRC also creates legal submissions for international tribunals, such as the European court of human rights and for UN treaty bodies.[7] The organisation seeks to influence at both a national and European level, and litigates across a broad range of issues including education, environment, migration, enforcement, identity, health, and issues affecting children.[8]

The ERRC has won cases against France, Greece, Italy and (twice) Bulgaria before the European Committee of Social Rights;[9] besides this, ERRC lawyers have represented the applicants in numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights, including D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic and Oršuš and Others v. Croatia. The ERRC has also launched strategic litigation in the United Kingdom with a notable case being the 2004 R (European Roma Rights Centre) v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport contested in the House of Lords.

The ERRC publishes research on a broad range of issues effecting the Roma community. The organisation creates its reports using a wide range of methods including work with a broad network of lawyers, journalists, research partners, monitoring bodies and relevant subject specialists. In some instances, the ERRC plays a supporting role for research happening at a local level or creates research reports that review relevant secondary literature.[10]

The 2004 "Roma in an Enlarged European Union" report has reached a broad audience of policymakers and was published by the Directorate General of Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission. The ERRC has influenced the European Union enlargement by pressuring candidate countries to comply with the Copenhagen criteria and ensuring that the Roma situation is a priority issue. The organisation often reports to UN Committees such as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)[11][12][13][14][15] or the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)[16] about Roma communities. During the recent Coronavirus pandemic, the group published "Roma rights in the time of Covid", an in-depth analysis of discrimination and rights abuses across twelve EU states during 2020.[17]

In 2016 the ERRC became a Roma-majority organisation, and in 2018 launched the ERRC Roma Rights Defenders, a large volunteer network who contribute to the ERRC and its various projects. This includes a broad range of activities including campaigning, field work and online organising.[18]

The ERRC is the recipient of numerous human rights awards including the 2007 Max van Der Stoel Prize, the 2009 Gruber Prize for Justice,[19] the 2012 Stockholm Human Rights Prize, and the 2018 Raoul Wallenberg Award.[20]

An important part of the ERRC's work involves the provision of training and educational projects for Roma activists. Past training has focused on developing the capabilities of NGO's who work with Roma communities, activists who are part of Romani rights groups and others working in the field of civil society, human rights and strategic litigation.[21] Other forms of training have also been delivered by the ERRC, including single-issue sessions that focus on a particular topic such as migration, housing rights or legal rights. Training has been delivered in a large variety of different cities in Europe.[22]