hudoc

Retrieve European Court of Human Rights case law and citation chains from HUDOC.

2|Updated May 8, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/StianOby/claude-legal-tools --skill hudoc
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: hudoc
Source: https://github.com/StianOby/claude-legal-tools/tree/main/skills/hudoc
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/StianOby/claude-legal-tools --skill hudoc

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes scripts (resource) and references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve?

Legal researchers, academics, and professionals often waste time manually browsing the HUDOC database to find accurate European Court of Human Rights case law, structured metadata, and citation chains, risking errors from incomplete or misidentified sources.

Core Features & Use Cases

  • Filtered Case Search: Run Lucene-style queries to find ECtHR cases by Convention article, respondent state, court instance, date range, or case name, with support for narrowing results to Grand Chamber judgments, admissibility decisions, or other document types.
  • Full Document Retrieval: Fetch official judgment text with preserved paragraph numbering, downloadable PDFs for formal citation, or structured metadata including ECLI identifiers, invoked articles, and separate opinion flags for any HUDOC item.
  • Citation Analysis: Extract every Strasbourg case cited in a judgment, plus use reverse lookup to find all later cases that reference a known judgment via its application number, supporting legal academic research and precedent tracking.
  • Use Case: A human rights researcher writing a paper on Article 8 surveillance jurisprudence can quickly pull the full text of Big Brother Watch v. the United Kingdom, extract its cited case law, and find all subsequent Grand Chamber judgments that reference the ruling.

Quick Start

Ask Claude to retrieve the full judgment text and parsed citation list for the European Court of Human Rights case Big Brother Watch v. the United Kingdom, and it will automatically fetch the required documents and data for you.

Frequently Asked Questions about hudoc

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I retrieve European Court of Human Rights case law and metadata directly from HUDOC?

Retrieve European Court of Human Rights case law by running Lucene-style queries to filter cases by Convention article, respondent state, or court instance. This fetches structured metadata, ECLI identifiers, and official judgment text with preserved paragraph numbering directly from the HUDOC database.

Can I extract citation chains and find cases that reference a specific ECtHR judgment?

Extract citation chains by parsing every Strasbourg case cited within a judgment. Use reverse lookup with a known application number to find all later European Court of Human Rights cases that reference the ruling, supporting precedent tracking and legal academic research.

What's the best way to filter ECtHR cases by document type and Convention article?

Filter ECtHR cases using Lucene-style queries to narrow results by Convention article, respondent state, date range, or court instance. Narrow results to specific document types like Grand Chamber judgments or admissibility decisions for targeted human rights research.

How can I download citable PDFs and official judgment text for ECtHR cases?

Download citable PDFs and fetch official judgment text with preserved paragraph numbering for formal citation. Retrieve full documents from the HUDOC database including structured metadata, invoked articles, and separate opinion flags for any European Court of Human Rights item.

Do I need external Python libraries to parse HUDOC citation metadata?

No external Python libraries are needed to parse HUDOC citation metadata. The retrieval and parsing of European Court of Human Rights case law, metadata, and citation chains is accomplished using only the Python standard library tools.