1st Edition
The European Convention of Human Rights Regime Reform of Immigration and Minority Policies from Afar
Prompted by an unprecedented rise of litigation since the 1990s, this book examines how the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) system and the Strasbourg Court interact with states and non-governmental actors to influence domestic change. Focusing on European Court of Human Rights litigation and state implementation of judgments related to minority discrimination and asylum/migration, it argues that a fundamental transformation of the Convention system has been under way. Repeat and strategic litigation, shifting methods of supervision and state implementation to remedy systemic violations, and above all the growing engagement of civil society and non-governmental actors, have prompted a distinctive trend of human rights experimentalism. The emergence of experimentalism has profound implications for the legitimacy, effectiveness and further reform of the ECHR system. This study provides an original constitutive account of regional human rights regimes and how they are activated by societal actors to claim rights, advance case law, and pressure for domestic legal and policy change. It will be of interest to international law and international relations scholars, political scientists, specialists on the ECHR, the Strasbourg Court, as well as to scholars interested in the human rights of immigrants and minorities.
1. Minorities and migrants in the Strasbourg Court
2. Transnational litigation and human rights experimentalism
3. From politics to law: ECHR reform and legal opportunities
Part I – Litigation and legal mobilization
4. Seeking protection of minorities and victims of armed conflict
5. Legal strategies for migrants’ rights and policy change
Part II – Judgment implementation and domestic reform
6. Tackling Roma segregation in education
7. Pressuring for asylum and immigration detention reform
8. The ECHR as an experimentalist governance regime
Bibliography
Annex: A note on methodology and data collection
Index
Biography
Dia Anagnostou is Associate Professor, Panteion University of Social Sciences, Athens, Greece, and Senior Research Fellow, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Greece.
'Through the lens of legal experimentalism, this compelling book analyzes immigration and minority policies and the European Convention of Human Rights. Law emerges from a transnational process of continuous contestation and learning of international legal institutions and local and national actors. Because it offers an instructive contrast to the experimentation movement in the social sciences, this highly original and carefully developed application of the experimentalist turn appeals to readers interested in both European law and general legal and social analysis.'
Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies, Cornell University
'This is an innovative and impressive book, which analyzes the functioning and effectiveness of the European Court of Human Rights in the area of minorities and migrants’ rights from an "experimentalist" perspective, and with particular focus on civil society mobilization. During a time of populist and nationalist illiberalism, the author presents a compelling theory of the effectiveness of strategic litigation before the ECtHR in these two important fields. The book should be of great interest to lawyers and political scientists who want to understand the role of courts and litigation in social change, and particularly to those interested in examining the effectiveness of regional and international human rights systems.'
Gráinne de Búrca, Florence Ellinwood Allen Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
