The Impact of the ECHR on Democratic Change in Central and Eastern Europe

by Iulia Motoc
The Impact of the ECHR on Democratic Change in Central and Eastern Europe
Author: Iulia Motoc
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2016-08-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1316558835
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High hopes were placed in the ability of the European Convention and the Court of Human Rights to help realise fundamental freedoms and civil and political rights in the post-communist countries. This book explores the effects of the Strasbourg human rights system on the domestic law, politics and reality of the new member states. With contributions by past and present judges of the European Court of Human Rights and assorted constitutional courts, this book provides an insider view of the relationship between Central and Eastern European states and the ECHR, and examines the fundamental role played by the ECHR in the process of democratisation, particularly the areas of the right to liberty, the right to propriety, freedom of expression, and minorities' rights.

Domestic Judicial Treatment of European Court of Human Rights Case Law

by David Kosař
Domestic Judicial Treatment of European Court of Human Rights Case Law
Author: David Kosař
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2020-02-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000036596
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The European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) suffers from the burgeoning caseload and challenges to its authority. This two-pronged crisis undermines the ECtHR’s legitimacy and consequently the functioning of the whole European human rights regime. Domestic courts can serve as welcome allies of the Strasbourg Court. They have a potential to diffuse Convention norms domestically, and therefore prevent and filter many potential human rights violations. Yet, we know very little about how domestic courts actually treat the Strasbourg Court’s rulings. This book brings unique empirical findings on how often, how and with what consequences domestic judges work with the ECtHR’s case law. It moves beyond the narrow concept of compliance and develops a new three-level methodology for analysing the role played by domestic courts in the implementation of ECtHR case law. Moreover, using the example of Czechia, it shifts the attention from Western countries to a more volatile Central and Eastern European region, which has recently witnessed democratic backsliding and backlash against international checks on human rights and the rule of law standards. Looking at a wider social and legal context, this book identifies factors helping transitional countries to adapt to regional human rights regimes. The work will be an essential resource for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional law, Politics and Human Rights law. Its global appeal is enhanced by the methodological framework which is applicable in other international systems.

The Impact of European Institutions on the Rule of Law and Democracy

by Matej Avbelj
The Impact of European Institutions on the Rule of Law and Democracy
Author: Matej Avbelj
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2020-04-30
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509915060
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Since 2010 the European Union has been plagued by crises of democracy and the rule of law, which have been spreading from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), catching many by surprise. This book argues that the professed success of the 2004 big bang enlargement mirrored the Potemkin villages erected in the new Member States on their accession to Europe. Slovenia is a prime example. Since its independence and throughout the accession process, Slovenia has been portrayed as the poster child of the 'New Europe'. This book claims that the widely shared narrative of the Slovenian EU dream is a myth. In many ways, Slovenia has fared even worse than its contemporary, constitutionally-backsliding, CEE counterparts. The book's discussion of the depth and breadth of the democratic crises in Slovenia should contribute to a critical intellectual awakening and better comprehension of the real causes of the present crises across the other CEE Member States, which threaten the viability of the EU and Council of Europe projects. It is only on the basis of this improved understanding that the crises can be appropriately addressed at national, transnational and supranational levels.

Compliance with Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights

by Ramute Remezaite
Compliance with Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights
Author: Ramute Remezaite
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2023-12-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004538216
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What does compliance with judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) look like in states on the spectrum of democratisation? This work provides an in-depth investigation of three such states—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia— in the wider context of the growing 'implementation crisis' in Europe, and does so through a combined lens of theoretical insights and rich empirical data. The book offers a detailed analysis of the domestic contexts varying from democratising to increasingly authoritarian tendencies, which shape the states’ compliance behaviour, and discusses why and how such states comply with human rights judgments. It puts particular focus on ‘contested’ compliance as a new form of compliance behaviour involving states’ acting in ‘bad faith’ and argues for a revival of the concept of partial compliance. The wider impact that ECtHR judgments have in states on the spectrum of democratisation is also explored.

Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice

by Rachel Murray
Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice
Author: Rachel Murray
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2022-11-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1800372280
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Building upon the growing body of scholarship on the factors and actors that influence the extent to which states implement human rights law, this cutting-edge Research Handbook takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the roles of actors within supranational human rights bodies, the decisions and judgements they make, and the tools they use to facilitate human rights implementation.

Hate Speech and Human Rights in Eastern Europe

by Viera Pejchal
Hate Speech and Human Rights in Eastern Europe
Author: Viera Pejchal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2020-04-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000057690
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Hate Speech and Human Rights. Democracies need to understand these terms to properly adapt their legal frameworks. Regulation of hate speech exposes underlining and sometimes invisible societal values such as security and public order, equality and non-discrimination, human dignity, and other democratic vital interests. The spread of hatred and hate speech has intensified in many corners of the world over the last decade and its regulation presents a conundrum for many democracies. This book presents a three-prong theory describing three different but complementary models of hate speech regulation which allows stakeholders to better address this phenomenon. It examines international and national legal frameworks and related case law as well as pertinent scholarly literature review to highlight this development. After a period of an absence of free speech during communism, post-communist democracies have sought to build a framework for the exercise of free speech while protecting public goods such as liberty, equality and human dignity. The three-prong theory is applied to identify public goods and values underlining the regulation of hate speech in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, two countries that share a political, sociological, and legal history, as an example of the differing approaches to hate speech regulation in post-communist societies due to divergent social values, despite identical legal frameworks. This book will be of great interest to scholars of human rights law, lawyers, judges, government, NGOs, media and anyone who would like to understand values that underpin hate speech regulations which reflect values that society cherishes the most.

Great Debates on the European Convention on Human Rights

by Fiona de Londras
Great Debates on the European Convention on Human Rights
Author: Fiona de Londras
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2018-03-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509958657
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This engaging textbook provides a critical analysis of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the European Convention on Human Rights and its practical operation. In a succinct way, the book investigates questions around the legitimacy of how the European Court of Human Rights develops its law, the obligations of states to comply with its judgments, the adequacy of the Convention in securing basic goods, and the effectiveness of the system in protecting rights 'in the real world'. It assesses some under-explored areas of the Convention that are often overlooked. Presenting a number of debates about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the system in a provocative and critical style, this book encourages debate, discussion, and self-reflection on how, when and why the Convention protects human rights in Europe. An ideal text for Law students at English and Welsh universities and higher education institutions taking a module in The European Convention on Human Rights (LLB or LLM level), and for GDL/CPE students and those taking the postgraduate LPC training course.

The Right to Political Participation

by Gabriella Citroni
The Right to Political Participation
Author: Gabriella Citroni
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2022-01-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000517926
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This book provides a comparative analysis of how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) affect political participation and electoral justice at the national level. Looking at specific countries, the work analyses the legal impact the implementation of the ECtHR and the IACtHR judgments has, with a specific focus on cases in which the regional court concerned uses the “democratic argument,” that is, an argument related to democracy and political rights. The reasoning is that, although democracy is a much wider concept, judgments concerning violations of political rights and electoral justice provide reliable indicators to assess the status and sustainability of democracy in a State. Moreover, the analysis of the violations of political rights and electoral justice allows an in-depth comparison between the two regional human rights systems. Mindful of the broader scope of the fall-out generated by the non-implementation of judgments, including in socio-economic terms, the book includes a section exploring how judgments issued by the ECtHR and the IACtHR affect voters’ participation in the countries under their jurisdiction. To this end, an original dataset including the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe and the 20 countries which recognised the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the IACtHR is built. Multidisciplinary in aim and scope of analysis, the book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights law, and political economy.