Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-7jkgd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-28T23:12:18.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Reassembling the French State via Human Rights: Between Human Rights Internationalism and Political Sovereignism

from Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2018

By
Mikael Rask Madsen
Edited by
Marlene Wind
Marlene Wind
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Get access

Summary

This chapter analyses how the growing force of particularly the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has reassembled the French State. It argues that the development of the relationship between France and European human rights is hardly a linear development but rather one marked by a schism between internationalism and sovereignism that is both historical and contemporary. The chapter suggests that three stages can be observed with regard to the reception of international and European human rights in France. The first period is marked by export and national refusal of international human rights as a matter of domestic politics, lasting until roughly the mid-1970s. The second period is characterised by a burgeoning domestic political interest but still marked by an autonomous domestic interpretation of rights within the legal field, lasting until mid- to late 2000s. And the third period is marked by the mainstreaming of ECHR norms – at least on substantive matters – into the French legal field. In conclusion, the analysis points to the new Euro-scepticism in France and its possible implications for the Strasbourg institutions and their role in France.

Type
Chapter
Information
International Courts and Domestic Politics , pp. 139 - 159
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdelgawad, E. L. & Weber, A. (2008). The Reception Process in France and Germany. In Keller, H. & Stone Sweet, A., eds., A Europe of Rights: The Impact of the ECHR on National Legal Systems, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–64.Google Scholar
Agi, M. (1998). René Cassin. Prix Nobel de la Paix (1887–1976): Père de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme, Paris: Perrin.Google Scholar
Agrikoliansky, É. (2002a). La ligue française des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen depuis 1945: Sociologie d’un engagement civique, Paris: l’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Agrikoliansky, É. (2002b). ‘Liberté, liberté chérie’: La gauche et les libertés publiques dans les années 1970. Usages politiques d’une catégorie juridique. l’Université de Picardie, Curapp.Google Scholar
Alter, K. J., Helfer, L. R. & Madsen, M. R. (2016). How Context Shapes the Authority of International Courts. Law & Contemporary Problems, 79, 1–36.Google Scholar
Arnardóttir, O. M. (2014). Rethinking the Two Margins of Appreciation. On file with author.Google Scholar
Badie, B. & Birnbaum, P. (1983). The Sociology of the State, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bates, E. (2010). The Evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights: From Its Inception to the Creation of a Permanent Court of Human Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonino, P. (2016). La France face à la Convention européenne des droits de l’Homme (1949–1981) Doctoral Degree, University of Cergy-Pontoise.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (2012). Sur l’État: Cours au Collège de France, Paris, Seuil.Google Scholar
Christoffersen, J. & Madsen, M. R. (2013). Postscript: Understanding the Past, Present and Future of the European Court of Human Rights. In Christoffersen, J. & Madsen, M. R., eds., The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics, 2nd. edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 230–49.Google Scholar
Commaille, J. (2000). La juridicisation du politique. Entre réalité et connaissance de la réalité. In Commaille, J., Dumoulin, L. & Robert, C., eds., La juridicisation du politique. Leçons scientifiques. Paris: LGDJ, pp. 241–51.Google Scholar
Delmas-Marty, M. (1989). Raisonner la raison d’État: Vers une Europe des droits de l’homme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Eckel, J. & Moyn, S. (2013). The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
European Court of Human Rights (2016). Fact Sheet – Religious Symbols and Clothing, Strasbourg: European Court of Human Rights.Google Scholar
Goldstein, L. & Ban, C. (2003). ‘The Rule of Law and the European Human Rights Regime’. Center for the Study of Law and Society Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, University of California Berkeley, available at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2q59x006.Google Scholar
Helfer, L. R. (2008). Redesigning the European Court of Human Rights: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime. European Journal of International Law, 19, 125–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hennette-Vauchez, S. & Sorel, J.-M., eds. (2011). Les droits de l’homme ont-ils constitutionnalisé le monde? Brussels: Bruylant.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, S. L. (2011). Human Rights in the Twentieth Century: A Critical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huneeus, A. (2016). Constitutional Lawyers and the Authority of the Inter-American Court. Law & Contemporary Problems, 79.Google Scholar
Hunt, L. A. (2007). Inventing Human Rights: A History, New York; London: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Joas, H. (2013). The Sacredness of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, H. & Stone Sweet, A., eds. (1998). A Europe of Rights: The Impact of the ECHR on National Legal Systems, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klose, F. (2013). Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauren, G. (2003). The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lester, A. (2009). The European Court of Human Rights after 50 Years. European Human Rights Law Reveiw, 461–77.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. (2004). France, the UK and ‘Boomerang’ of the Internationalisation of Human Rights (1945–2000). In Halliday, S. & Schmidt, P., eds., Human Rights Brought Home: Socio-Legal Perspectives on Human Rights in the National Context, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 57–86.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. (2007). From Cold War Instrument to Supreme European Court: The European Court of Human Rights at the Crossroads of International and National Law and Politics. Law & Social Inquiry, 32, 137–59.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. (2010). La genèse de l’Europe des droits de l’homme: Enjeux juridiques et stratégies d’Etat (France, Grande-Bretagne et pays scandinaves, 1945–1970), Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. (2011). The Protracted Institutionalisation of the Strasbourg Court: From Legal Diplomacy to Integrationist Jurisprudence. In Madsen, M. R. & Christoffersen, J., eds., The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43–60.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. (2016). The Challenging Authority of the European Court of Human Rights: From Cold War Legal Diplomacy to the Brighton Declaration and Backlash. Law & Contemporary Problems, 79.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. & Thornhill, C., eds. (2014). Law and the Formation of Modern Europe: Perspectives from the Historical Sociology of Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. & Verschraegen, G. (2016). Towards a New Sociology of Human Rights? Review Essay on Hans Joas’ Sacredness of the Person. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 7, 273–93.Google Scholar
Madsen, M. R. & Verschraegen, G. (2018). Rebalancing European Human Rights: Has the Brighton Declaration Engendered a New Deal on Human Rights in Europe? Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 2.Google Scholar
Marguenaud, J. P. (2001). l’Effectivité des arrêts de la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme en France. Journal des droits de l’Homme, 24, 1–12.Google Scholar
Martinez, J. S. (2012). The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Misandeau, A. (2016). Lui président, Fillon pourrait quitter la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme. Le Figaro, 26 October 2016.Google Scholar
Morsink, J. (1999). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting & Intent, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Moyn, S. (2010). The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Pateyron, É. (1998). La contribution française à la rédaction de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme, Paris: La Documentation française.Google Scholar
Provost, R. (2015). Teetering on the Edge of Legal Nihilism: Russia and the Evolving European Human Rights Regime. Human Rights Quarterly, 37, 289–40.Google Scholar
Rodrik, D., Subramanian, A. & Trebbi, F. (2004). Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development. Journal of Economic Growth, 9, 131–65.Google Scholar
Sadl, U. & Madsen, M. R. (2016). Did the Financial Crisis Change European Citizenship Law? An Analysis of Citizenship Rights Adjudication before and After the Financial Crisis. European Law Journal, 22, 40–60.Google Scholar
Sandholtz, W. & Whytock, C. A., eds. (2017). Research Handbook on the Politics of International Law, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sikkink, K. (1996). The Emergence, Evolution, and Effectiveness of the Latin American Human Rights Network. In Jelin, E. & Hershberg, E., eds., Constructing Democracy. Human Rights, Citizenship and Society in Latin America, Colorado: Westview Press, pp. 59–84.Google Scholar
Simpson, A. W. B. (2004). Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sluga, G. (2011). René Cassin: Les droits de l’homme and the Universality of Human Rights, 1945–1966. In Hoffmann, S.-L., ed., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century: A Critical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107–24.Google Scholar
Thelen, K. (1999). Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 369–404.Google Scholar
Thomas, D. C. (2001). The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thornhill, C. (2013). State Building, Constitutional Rights and the Social Construction of Norms: Outline for a Sociology of Constitutions. In Madsen, M. R. & Verschraegen, G., eds., Making Human Rights Intelligible: Towards a Sociology of Human Rights, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 25–59.Google Scholar
Waltz, S. (2002). Reclaiming and Rebuilding the History of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Third World Quarterly, 23, 437–48.Google Scholar
Winter, J. & Prost, A. (2013). Rene Cassin and Human Rights – from the Great War to the Universal Declaration, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×