(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 171 both from their peers and from public opinion to implement rulings. It is not a genuine ‘name and shame’ policy but, to a large extent, acts as such. Furthermore, the Committee of Ministers possesses the ‘nuclear option’ of suspension and expulsion of a state as a reaction to its failure to meet human rights requirements.7 This measure has never been fully used, although it was close to being applied in 1969 against Greece,8 then a military dictatorship.9 With a larger and a more diverse membership in the Council of Europe, with states such as Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan that are not or no longer democratic, one could imagine more instances of use of the suspension possibility although this has not been the case in practice. A ‘nuclear option’ also exists in the EU after the Treaty of Nice10 in the form of suspension of membership for violations of values of the Union.11 Again, this option has not been used although it has been aired recently vis-à-vis Hungary and Poland following a number of government interferences with the principles of separation of powers, media freedom and freedom of education.12 Nowadays, the EU has become such an important player on the global stage that the human rights commitments that member states have via other organisations or treaties could be affected by EU membership. Already in 2000, the Court of Justice of the European Union stated that measures incompatible with human rights are not acceptable in any conflict between EU law on specific matters (like free movement) and human rights provisions.13 This was stressed again in the Kadi case, which found that human rights obligations supersede even other international obligations (like commitments of member states as UN members to institute sanctions).14 7 Article 8 of the Statute of the CoE (ETS No 001, London 3 August 1949) provides for the suspension of rights of representation and, eventually, the expulsion of ‘any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 [of the Statute, namely principles of rule of law and of human rights and fundamental freedoms]’. 8 Applications 3321/67 (Denmark v Greece), 3322/67 (Norway v Greece), 3323/67 (Sweden v Greece), and 3344/67 (Netherlands v Greece). 9 The Greek government declared that it did not intend to respect the rights enshrined in the ECHR and eventually the country withdrew from the CoE and denounced the Convention before it could be expelled. See C Ovey & RCA White Jacobs & White: The European Convention on Human Rights (2006) 504. 10 In force since 2003. 11 Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union (Treaty of Lisbon) provides that the EU member states, ‘acting by unanimity’ (without the participation of the member state concerned) ‘may determine the existence of a serious and persistent breach by a member state of the values referred to in Article 2’ (namely respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities) and suspend the participation and rights of this state. 12 In July 2016, the Commission adopted a Rule of Law Recommendation on the situation in Poland (see relevant press release in http://europa.eu/rapid/pressrelease_IP-16-2643_en.htm) which is still pending. Concerning Hungary, the European Parliament, in a resolution adopted in May 2017, requested from the Commission “to launch a formal procedure to determine whether there is a clear risk of a serious breach” of EU values by Hungary (see European Parliament resolution of 17 May 2017 on the situation in Hungary P8 TA (2017)0216). 13 Case C-112/00 Schmidberger. 14 Cases C/402/05P and 415/02P Kadi v Council.