Private company

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights

Logo: European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons⁴

Non-profit human rights organization

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2007Founded¹

Industryinternational activities¹
HeadquartersBerlin, Germany¹
Websitewww.ecchr.eu
Legal formRegistered association (eingetragener Verein)¹
Kind of organizationNonprofit organization¹
LEI529900S4ONKLVEL40A91³
StatusActive³
LEI statusLapsed (not renewed)³
Registered addressZossener Str. 55-58, 10961 Berlin, Germany³
Registered withLocal Court Berlin-Charlottenburg, VR 26608³

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The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is an independent, non-profit non-governmental organization with the aim of enforcing human rights through legal means. Using litigation, it tries to hold state and non-state actors responsible for human rights violations. It was founded in 2007 by the German civil rights attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, together with a group of human rights lawyers, in order to help protect the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other declarations of human rights and national constitutions, by juridical means. ECCHR engages in litigation, using European, international, and national law to help protect human rights.²

Products and brands

The Business and Human Rights program looks at three main areas: transnational corporate activities in authoritarian regimes and conflict zones, working conditions in the global supply chain and business activities that affect economic and social rights. Areas of focus include:

Cooperation of companies with regimes and conflict parties and their relation to human rights violations (e.g. in Syria, Yemen, Colombia, Argentina)

Inhumane working conditions in the global supply chain in agro and textile industries (e. g. in Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Qatar)

Access to land and livelihoods (e. g. in Zimbabwe, Peru)

From Wikipedia’s article on European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁵

Employees over time

202344¹

Revenue over time

As stated on Wikidata, in the currency reported.

Revenue

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights revenue by year¹5.2M EUR in 2024+22% since 2022

20245.2M EUR¹
20224.3M EUR¹

Controversies and legal

Institute for Legal Intervention

In the Institute for Legal Intervention, ECCHR focuses on critical perspectives on law, particularly concerning dynamics of power. By combining legal theory and practice and through exchange with research institutions and universities, but also through collaboration with activists, artists and partners worldwide, ECCHR aims to contribute to political, legal and societal debates regarding unjust power relations and social justice. At the core of this work lies the understanding of law as an expression of societal power relations and thus an instrument of hegemony, but also the recognition of the emancipatory potential of law.

An important part of ECCHR's work is the Critical Legal Training, in which ECCHR regularly trains and educates human rights activists.

Critical Legal Training

ECCHR's Critical Legal Training offers participants a platform for the theory and practice of international human rights law. It aims to develop and further a critical analysis of contemporary issues of law and society. ECCHR claims that since 2008 about 400 human rights lawyers from more than 40 countries have been volunteers or trainees at the organization.

Lawsuits

In 2025 the activists partnered with Pakistani NGO's HANDS Welfare Foundation and National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) to sue the German companies RWE and Heidelberg Materials for damages which occurred in the 2022 Pakistan floods with local farms, citing the responsibility of both companies for Climate change.

In 2025 the ECCHR activists filed a lawsuit with the German Federal Constitutional Court for a Palestinian man, which aimed to forbid Germany from exporting Renk gearboxes for tanks to Israel. The plaintiff had lost family members due to Israeli military actions and stated that Germany had the duty to protect his right to life and should not allow the delivery. In early 2026 the court declared itself not competent to hear the case and explained that while International humanitarian law must be considered when greenlighting arms exports, there is no legally enforceable right to specific measures.