Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights holds that the right to choose the way and the timing of one's death is not granted by art. 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the Court, the latter provision could only cover the right not to be intentionally deprived of life, and not its opposite. However, the choice to have a decent death cannot be excluded from any protection, insofar as a free decision of the interested individual in this sense may fall under the scope of art. 8 of the Convention, guaranteeing the right to private and family life. Considering the lack of a shared consensus in the European context and the sensibility of the questions involved, it seems wise to afford the States a wide marge of appreciation in this subject-matter.