Framing a Convention Community

Abstract

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has evolved from an international agreement into a highly integrated legal community with an ever more pervasive effect on domestic law and individuals. The supranational authority of the European Court of Human Rights bypasses the nation state in a growing number of other areas. Understanding the evolution of the ECHR and its Court may help in explaining and contextualising growing resistance against the Court, and in developing possible responses. Examining the Convention system through the prism of supranationality, Cedric Marti offers a fresh, comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective on the expanding adjudicatory powers of the Court, including law-making. Marti addresses the growing literature of institutional studies on human rights enforcement to ascertain the particularities of the ECHR and its relationship to domestic legal systems. This study will be of great value to both scholars of international law and human rights practitioners.