1 - Introduction

Summary

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) makes a difference in Europe. It creates standards that are applicable in the forty-seven contracting parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR or Convention). The impact of the ECtHR has been extensively explored in academic literature. The Court intervenes in the most fundamental, sensitive and controversial issues that the European nations debate; it sets the standards for how European authorities should treat people under their jurisdiction; it creates and maintains the meaning of European human rights and develops the legal ideology of human rights protection. According to the Court, the Convention is a constitutional instrument of European public order. Having said all this, there are limits to what the Court can do and how far it can intervene within European public order. The key questions that this book is posing are what exactly does European public order mean and how can it be shaped; and, more importantly, should an institution like the ECtHR aim to shape it?