The Development of Personal Identity Rights at the European Court of Human Rights: whose rights and what is achieved? 

By reference to applied philosophy and case law, Jill Marshall explores how human rights law, and particularly the European Court of Human Rights (the Court), has developed and interpreted a right to personal identity, largely arising from a right to respect for one’s private life – see J Marshall: Personal Freedom Through Human Rights Law? (2009); Human Rights Law and Personal Identity (2014) and Personal Identity and the European Court of Human Rights (2022). This paper continues Marshall’s analysis by reference to the Court’s case law, concentrating on more recent cases. The paper interrogates the development of these rights analysing whose rights have been protected and what role human rights law plays in the formation, and protection, of permissible personal identities, asking and suggesting some responses to what has been, and could be, achieved. Marshall’s analysis includes cases on Islamic headscarves, secret births, and intercultural adoption.

Short Author Biography:

Professor Jill Marshall, Professor of Law, Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway University of London co-directs the interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law (CSEL). She also leads the Rights and Freedoms research cluster and postgraduate research within her department. She is a qualified lawyer. Her work focuses on the relationship between law and living well, human flourishing, what it means to be free, with a focus on girls’ and women’s human rights. She has written widely on these topics and is the author of three books and one edited collection. Current projects include conceptually distinguishing pregnancy and giving birth from motherhood, baby boxes and secret births, deception and identity in the metaverse, and freedom of religion, expression, and identity through dress.

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