Older persons' use of the European Court of Human Rights.

One of the most significant human rights tribunals in Europe is the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Up to day, no study has attempted to explore the cases brought before the ECtHR that discuss and rule on issues concerning the rights of older persons. To descriptively analyze the ECtHR cases that deal with older persons and elder rights issues. Quantitative and descriptive analysis of 226 randomly selected publicly-open ECtHR cases dealing with elder-rights between the years 2000-2010. On average, 11.9 % of the ECtHR case load included rulings that concern older persons' rights. In the majority of the cases (91 %, 205 judgments), the ECtHR found a violation of at least one human right concerning older persons. Despite the fact that rights of older persons do not appear as such in the European Convention on Human Rights, older persons do find their way to the ECtHR.