How to draw a line between journalism and propaganda in the information wars era? Case note on the Judgment of the General Court of 15 June 2017 in Case T-262/15 Dmitrii Konstantinovich Kiselev v Council of the European Union. College of Europe Case Notes 02/2018

Abstract

In recent years, we have been able to observe a shift in the EU’s sanctions policy from broad economic sanctions, affecting the entire population of the country, to more targeted sanctions, directed at individuals connected to problematic political regimes1. Those restrictive measures have immediate effects on the individuals concerned and are, at times, capable of jeopardising their lives. A number of cases, including the seminal judgement in the Kadi and Al Barakaat2 cases, have shown that those sanctions can be challenged before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) from a fundamental rights perspective and that EU standards in relation to the right to a hearing, judicial protection and property cannot be abrogated.3 The recent Kiselev4 case provides a good opportunity to analyse how the EU is coping with its difficult task of striking a balance between different competing interests: foreign policy objectives, international law obligations and fundamental rights. Following the settled case-law on sanctions, the General Court had to analyse whether the freedom of expression, as one of the fundamental rights protected by EU law and by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), could be restricted in the interest of foreign policy objectives. The Kiselev judgment follows the line of recent similar judgements on sanctions and can be viewed, to some extent, as a missed opportunity to further analyse the differences between propaganda and journalism