The Development of International Law by the European Court of Human Rights

It was in the aftermath of the devastation and human suffering brought about by World War II and the brutal policies of the Nazi regime that the governments of Western Europe concluded the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1950. The Convention has now been in force for many years and has been ratified by all the member countries of the Council of Europe. Most of the Parties have accepted the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights which can decide disputes between them arising out of the convention and also, and more significantly, can adjudicate in cases brought to it by the European Commission of Human Rights, or by a State concerned, cases which originate in a petition from an individual or group claiming to be the victim of a breach of some provision of the Convention by a State Party. This volume examines the Court's jurisprudence from the perspective of its contribution to the development of international law, or more particularly, its significance for, or understanding of, the international judicial process generally and of the role of adjudication in developing an international law of human rights.
The focus is therefore on the Court, its place in the Strasbourg institutional system, its approach to and methods of interpretation of the unavoidably open-textured language of the human rights provisions and its resort to some general principles of law. Two concluding chapters take a somewhat wider perspective and consider, respectively, the Convention in the context of general international law and other related treaties, and issues of ideology and international human rights law, including two contrasting ideologies denominated as "tough conservatism" and "benevolent liberalism".