Have national judges started treating the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights the same way they treat the EC law's norms? In order to answer this question, the editors of this book included scholars from the countries that are members both of the EU and the Council of Europe. The book collects the proceeding of an international conference held January 16-17, 2010, at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa.

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.

European Convention on Human Rights – Article 10 – Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. In the context of an effective democracy and respect for human rights mentioned in the Preamble to the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of expression is not only important in its own right, but it also plays a central part in the protection of other rights under the Convention. Without a broad guarantee of the right to freedom of expression protected by independent and impartial courts, there is no free country, there is no democracy. This general proposition is undeniable. This handbook is a practical tool for legal professionals from Council of Europe member states who wish to strengthen their skills in applying the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in their daily work.

Confusion about the differences between the Council of Europe (the parent body of the European Court of Human Rights) and the European Union is commonplace amongst the general public. It even affects some lawyers, jurists, social scientists and students. This book will enable the reader to distinguish clearly between those human rights norms which originate in the Council of Europe and those which derive from the EU, vital for anyone interested in human rights in Europe and in the UK as it prepares to leave the EU. The main achievements of relevant institutions include securing minimum standards across the continent as they deal with increasing expansion, complexity, multidimensionality, and interpenetration of their human rights activities. The authors also identify the central challenges, particularly for the UK in the post-Brexit era, where the components of each system need to be carefully distinguished and disentangled.

Presents a critical evaluation of a controversial interpretative tool the ECtHR uses to answer morally/politically sensitive human rights questions.

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action. Completely revised and updated, with many newly written chapters, this fifth edition of the most thorough resource in its field provides the most comprehensive and systematic account available of the law of the European Union (EU). Written by a new team of experts in their respective areas of European law, its coverage incorporates and embraces many current, controversial, and emerging issues and provides detailed attention to historical development and legislative history of EU law. Topics that are constantly debated in European legal analysis and practice are touched on in ways that are both fundamental and enlightening, including the following: .powers and functions of the EU law institutions and relationship among them; .the principles of equality, loyalty, subsidiarity, and proportionality; .free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital; .mechanisms of constitutional change – treaty revisions, accession treaties, withdrawal agreements; .budgetary principles and procedures; .State aid rules; .effect of Union law in national legal systems; .coexistence of EU, European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and national fundamental rights law; .migration and asylum law; .liability of Member States for damage suffered by individuals; .competition law – cartels, abuse of dominant position, merger control; .social policy, equal pay, and equal treatment; .environmental policy, consumer protection, public health, cultural policy, education, and tourism; .nature of EU citizenship, its acquisition, and loss; and .law and policy of the EU’s external relations. The fifth edition embraces many new, ongoing, and emerging European legal issues. As in the previous editions, the presentation is notable for its attention to how the law relates to economic and political realities and how the various policy areas interact with each other and with the institutional framework. The many practitioners and scholars who have relied on the predecessors of this definitive work for years will welcome this extensively revised and updated edition. Those coming to the field for the first time will instantly recognize that they are in the presence of a masterwork that can always be turned to with profit and that helps in understanding the rationale underlying any EU law provision or principle.

A practical tool for legal professionals who wish to strengthen their skills in applying the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in their daily work This is the second and expanded edition of a handbook intended to assist judges, lawyers and prosecutors in taking account of the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols (“the European Convention”) – and more particularly of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights – when interpreting and applying codes of criminal procedure and comparable or related legislation. It does so by providing extracts from key rulings of the European Court and the former European Commission of Human Rights that have determined applications complaining about one or more violations of the European Convention in the course of the investigation, prosecution and trial of alleged offences, as well as in the course of appellate and various other proceedings linked to the criminal process.

This book questions the correctness of these assumptions and aims for further study of them. This is done by disentangling and illuminating the different elements underlying the interrelationship between the Court and the national courts. The objective is to distinguish between the requirements set by the Court; the constitutional powers and competences of national courts to interpret and apply international law, in particular the Convention; the way in which these courts actually use these competences to deal with the Court's interpretative approaches; and the type of criticism that is levelled at the Court's case-law. These elements are studied from the perspective of the Court as well as from a national perspective, in particular for Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Analysing these elements separately enables a fruitful assessment of their interrelationship and provides a sound basis for a constructive debate on the implementation of the Convention in national law, which is based on solid constitutional foundations rather than assumptions and intuitions. The current book is therefore of great interest to those who are interested in debates on the interrelationship between the Court and the states - scholars, as well as judges, policy makers and politicians - but also to those who take a more general interest in constitutional implementation mechanisms, judicial powers and judicial argumentation.

In recent years, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) gained unexpected relevance in the European constitutional culture. On the one hand, its increasing importance is closely linked to institutional reforms that strengthened the European Court of Human Rights' reputation vis-a-vis the Member States. On the other hand, and even more importantly, the ECHR's significance arises from a changing perception of its constitutional potential. Starting with the assumption that the ECHR is transforming the European constitutional landscape, this book shows that the European Convention raises unprecedented problems that involve, first of all, its own theoretical status as constitutional instrument that ensures the protection of human rights in Europe. Changing paradigms concerning its incorporation in domestic law, as well as the growing conflicts about the protection of some rights and liberties that are deeply rooted in national legal contexts (such as teaching of religion, bio law, and rights of political minorities), are jointly examined in order to offer a unified methodology for the study of European constitutional law centered upon human rights. For a detailed analysis of these issues, the book examines the different facets of the ECHR's constitutional relevance by separating the ECHR's role as a 'factor of Europeanization' for national constitutional systems (Part I) from its role as a veritable European transnational constitution in the field of human rights (Part II). Written for legal scholars focusing on the emerging trends of European and transnational constitutional law, the book investigates the basic tenets of the role of the ECHR as a cornerstone of European constitutionalism.