Professor Jill Marshall was recently invited by the University of Bergen, Norway to present her research on Personal Identity and the European Court of Human Rights. The in-person seminar was hosted by the Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism. This interdisciplinary Centre studies government use of, and justifications for, power towards its citizens.

Professor Marshall presented her research paper ‘The Development of Personal Identity Rights at the European Court of Human Rights: whose rights and what is achieved?’ as part of the RDV International Research Seminar Series, followed by a Q and A from the audience and online. Marshall’s paper 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 on gender identity, Islamic headscarves, secret births, and intercultural adoption, 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. Marshall responds to what has been, and could be, achieved.