Introduction

On 31 May 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR) in Strasbourg, France, made public its long-awaited ruling in the case of Khodorkovsky v. Russia (application No. 5829/04). This case is one of a number of claims arising out of the notorious "YUKOS affair". This term, coined by the media, is used to describe the fate of YUKOS, a once major vertically integrated group of Russian oil and gas companies, following tax evasion charges and its subsequent forced liquidation in 2003-2007 by the Russian authorities,. The applicant, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was the ...