Walls Within Walls: Tübingen Seminar Brings Together ECtHR Judges, CPT Members and Academics to Address Solitary Confinement

On 8 May 2026, the Faculty of Law of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Endowed Professorship of Crime Prevention and Risk Management hosted a joint international seminar on solitary confinement in prisons, bringing together ECtHR judges, CPT members and experts, legal scholars, and practitioners in the fields of prison law and human rights.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EVENT

The Tübingen seminar provided a unique forum for constructive dialogue between two leading Council of Europe institutions in the field of torture prevention. Its importance lies in its multidisciplinary character: alongside ECtHR case law analysis and CPT standards and reports, the seminar featured legal, medical, criminological, and sociological arguments illuminating the structural logic that sustains solitary confinement despite overwhelming evidence of its destructive impact.

The event was made possible in part through the contribution of the International Research Cooperation unit of the University of Tübingen.

PARTICIPANTS

European Court of Human Rights:

• Judge Mykola Gnatovskyy
• Judge Latif Hüseynov
• Judge Sebastian Rădulețu
• Judge Anne-Louise Bormann
• Giorgi Badashvili (lawyer, ECtHR Registry)

European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT):

• Alan Mitchell, President of the CPT (United Kingdom)
• Tom Daems, CPT Member (Belgium)
• Vassilis Tzevelekos, CPT Member (Greece)
• Anna Jonsson Cornell, CPT Member (Sweden)
• Dmytro Yagunov, CPT Member (Ukraine)

CPT Secretariat:

• Hugh Chetwynd, Executive Secretary of the CPT
• Petr Hnátík
• Laura Ielciu-Erel
• Aikaterini Lazana

Experts from the University of Tübingen:

• Prof. Dr. Christine Osterloh-Konrad, Dean of the Faculty of Law (welcome address)
• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Bernd Heinrich, Vice-Dean for International Relations, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure (welcome address)
• Prof. Dr. Rita Haverkamp, Vice-President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (welcome address)
• Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Wulf
• Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Kerner
• Tetyana Tonkoshkur, International Research Cooperation, University of Tübingen
• Dr. Cornelia Köhler, International Research Cooperation, University of Tübingen

«WHOM WE ISOLATE AND FROM WHOM: SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND THE LIMITS OF CARCERAL SOVEREIGNTY»

Dr. Dmytro Yagunov, CPT Member; Attorney-at-law; Doctor of Political Sciences; Research Fellow, University of Tübingen; Associate Professor, Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University

The presentation offered a radical rethinking of the discourse around solitary confinement. Dr. Dmytro Yagunov argued that the harmfulness of isolation has long ceased to be a matter of scientific debate – it has become an axiom. The real question is why, despite more than half a century of empirical studies, solitary confinement not only persists but remains structurally entrenched.

Drawing on the recently published CPT standard on informal prison hierarchies (CPT/Inf(2025)12) and numerous legal, sociological, psychiatric studies, the presentation asked: whom do we isolate and from whom? The analysis showed that in post-Soviet penitentiary systems, isolation frequently functions as a symptom of institutional underdevelopment rather than a response to individual danger. Using the theoretical frameworks of Michael Foucault, Stanley Cohen, and Zygmunt Bauman, three core functions of solitary confinement were identified: neutralisation, disciplinary terror, and symbolic sovereignty – none declared, none penologically justified.

«ISOLATION IN GERMAN PRISONS»

Prof. Dr. Rita Haverkamp, Endowed Professorship of Crime Prevention and Risk Management, University of Tübingen

Prof. Dr. Rita Haverkamp presented a detailed analysis of isolation practices in German prisons, examining both the legal framework and concrete cases of serious violations. The presentation drew on the Report of the Expert Commission on Bruchsal Prison, the Report of the Bavarian Expert Commission, and other primary sources.

On the conceptual level, the presentation distinguished between two forms of segregation: continuous solitary confinement and temporary placement in a specially secured cell. The two landmark cases examined were the following:

Bruchsal Prison, 2014: A prisoner died following prolonged unlawful isolation in a Baden-Württemberg correctional facility. The case exposed critical failures in the duty of care and the absence of adequate medical and psychiatric oversight. Among the lessons identified by Prof. Haverkamp: the need for interdisciplinary diagnosis and treatment, strengthening of prison supervision, medical and psychiatric safeguards, a clear legal basis for coercive medical measures, and systematic documentation and oversight.

Augsburg-Gablingen Prison, 2024: This case, documented by Germany’s National Preventive Mechanism, involved a person being held naked in a specially secured cell – a practice that, according to Prof. Haverkamp, reflects a broader institutional failure. The lessons drawn included: specially secured cells must function as an extreme measure of last resort, not a routine management tool; judicial control is required for prolonged measures; special protection rooms should be available as an alternative; psychiatric care must be treated as central; and staff must receive training underpinned by a genuine human-rights culture.

Prof. Haverkamp further referred to the Annual Report 2024 of Germany’s National Agency for the Prevention of Torture, which documents further violations in recent years – illustrating that these are not isolated incidents but a pattern requiring sustained regulatory and legislative attention.

«WALLS WITHIN WALLS: ECTHR CASE LAW AND CPT STANDARDS ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT»

Panel discussion chaired by Hugh Chetwynd (Executive Secretary, CPT); with Judge Mykola Gnatovskyy (ECtHR) and Prof. Dr. Tom Daems (CPT Member)

The central panel examined the most significant points of convergence and tension between the Court’s jurisprudential standards and the CPT’s preventive monitoring framework, including the principle of structural incompatibility formulated in Schmidt and Šmigol v. Estonia (2023) and its implications for assessing prolonged solitary confinement.

«THE ROOM WHERE IT ENDED»: THE LAST DEATH SENTENCE IN WEST GERMANY

Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Wulf, University of Tübingen

The closing presentation added a historical dimension unique to the seminar. It was in Tübingen, in February 1949, that the last death sentence in the Federal Republic of Germany was carried out – just before the abolition of capital punishment by the Basic Law. This fact lends Tübingen particular symbolic resonance for any scholar of criminal law and penal humanism.