Transitional Jurisprudence and the ECHR
Justice, Politics and Rights

Analyses the content, role and impact of the European Court of Human Rights' jurisprudence relating to societies in transition.

Antoine Buyse (Edited by), Michael Hamilton (Edited by)

9781107003019, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2011

330 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.64 kg

'This volume constitutes a very interesting, relevant and necessary insight into the transitional jurisprudence of the ECtHR, complemented with non-European comparisons. The book can be recommended to a broad spectrum of law specialists interested in human rights law, transitional justice, international criminal law as well as constitutional and comparative law.' Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Human Rights Law Review

The European Convention on Human Rights has been a standard-setting text for transitions to peace and democracy in states throughout Europe. This book analyses the content, role and effects of the jurisprudence of the European Court relating to societies in transition. It features a wide range of transitional challenges, from killings by security forces in Northern Ireland to property restitution in East Central Europe, and from political upheaval in the Balkans to the position of religious minorities and Roma. Has the European Court developed a specific transitional jurisprudence? How do politics affect the ways in which the Court's judgments are implemented? Does the Court's case-law itself become woven into narratives of struggle in transitional societies? This book seeks to answer these questions by highlighting the unique role of Europe's main guardian of human rights, the Court in Strasbourg. It includes a comparison with the Inter-American and African human rights systems.

1. Introduction Michael Hamilton and Antoine Buyse
2. Transitional emergency jurisprudence: derogation and transition Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
3. Rights and victims, martyrs and memories: the European Court of Human Rights and political transition in Northern Ireland Kris Brown
4. The ECHR and transition: confronting the consequences of authoritarianism and conflict Christopher Lamont
5. Freedom of religion and democratic transition James Sweeney
6. The truth, the past and the present: Article 10 of the ECHR and situations of transition Antoine Buyse
7. Transition, political loyalties and the order of the state Michael Hamilton
8. Transition, equality and non-discrimination Anne Smith and Rory O'Connell
9. Closing the door on restitution: the European Court of Human Rights Tom Allen and Benedict Douglas
10. The inter-American human rights system and transitional processes Diego Rodriquez-Pinzon
11. The 'transitional' jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Gina Bekker
12. Conclusions Antoine Buyse and Michael Hamilton.

Subject Areas: Laws of Specific jurisdictions [LN], Law [L], EU & European institutions [JPSN2]