'This insightful book considers how the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is faced with numerous challenges which emanate from authoritarian and populist tendencies arising across its member states. It argues that it is now time to reassess how the ECHR responds to such challenges to the protection of human rights in the light of its historical origins.
Written by a group of established and emerging experts from diverse backgrounds, this book offers a fresh perspective on the questions and challenges facing the ECHR, bringing together different, and thus far isolated, strands of academic and political debate. Contributions combine historiographical insights with explorations of the current and pressing need for the ECHR to find a role for itself, especially in an environment where there is increased scepticism towards the idea of human rights protection. In particular, the critical conception of the Convention as an ‘alarm bell mechanism’ is examined and assessed in relation to its original goal to prevent authoritarian backsliding.
The European Court of Human Rights: Current Challenges in Historical Perspective will be an important source of reference to academic researchers and students with an interest in human rights, international law and the law and politics of international organisations. It will also appeal to policymakers and legal practitioners due to its examination of pertinent legal and political issues that challenge international organisations.'
And this is the table of contents:
1 Introduction: The European Court of Human Rights – the past in the present, Helmut Philipp Aust
PART I CURRENT CHALLENGES OF THE COURT
2 From boom to backlash? The European Court of Human Rights and the transformation of Europe, Mikael Rask Madsen
3 Principled resistance to the European Court of Human Rights and its case law: a comparative assessment, Marten Breuer
4 Can Strasbourg be replicated at a global level? A view from Geneva, Yuval Shany
PART II HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CURRENT CHALLENGES: THE DRAFTING HISTORY IN CONTEXT
5 The European Convention on Human Rights and postwar history: why origins matter, Marco Duranti
6 For the sake of unity: the drafting history of the European Convention on Human Rights and its current relevance, Esra Demir-Gürsel
7 Asylum and immigration under the European Convention on Human Rights – an exclusive universality?, Prisca Feihle
PART III HISTORIES AS CASES AND IN THE CASES
8 History as an afterthought: the (re)discovery of Article 18 in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, Bașak Çalı and Kristina Hatas
9 Rethinking effectiveness: authoritarianism, state violence and the limits of the European Court of Human Rights, Dilek Kurban
10 ‘Never Again’ as a cornerstone of the Strasbourg system: the traces of the Holocaust in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias
11 Historical truth before the European Court of Human Rights, Björnstjern Baade
12 The limits of the European Court of Human Rights vis-à-vis contestation and authoritarianism: concluding observations, Esra Demir-Gürsel
