New Book on the European Court of Human Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Conflict

Dr Dilek Kurban, based at the Hertie School of Government in Berlin, has published the book Limits of Supranational Justice. The European Court of Human Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Conflict with Cambridge University Press. The monograph is a must read for any academic or legal practitioner at the Court and beyond to understand the relations between the European Court of Human Rights and Turkey on one of the most contentious issues. It is based on dr Kurban's PhD dissertation, defended at Maastricht University, and it won one of the Erasmus Research Prizes in the Netherlands, one of the most prestigious accolades for a PhD. This is the abstract:

'With its contextualized analysis of the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) engagement in Turkey's Kurdish conflict since the early 1990s, Limits of Supranational Justice makes a much-needed contribution to scholarships on supranational courts and legal mobilization. Based on a socio-legal account of the efforts of Kurdish lawyers in mobilizing the ECtHR on behalf of abducted, executed, tortured and displaced civilians under emergency rule, and a doctrinal legal analysis of the ECtHR's jurisprudence in these cases, this book powerfully demonstrates the Strasbourg court's failure to end gross violations in the Kurdish region. It brings together legal, political, sociological and historical narratives, and highlights the factors enabling the perpetuation of state violence and political repression against the Kurds. The effectiveness of supranational courts can best be assessed in hard cases such as Turkey, and this book demonstrates the need for a reappraisal of current academic and jurisprudential approaches to authoritarian regimes.'