Introduction

Summary

In the past decades, the international human rights law system welcomed the proliferation of regional and international human rights adjudicatory bodies, as they meant better and closer protection of human rights for people worldwide. Yet, this proliferation also increased the likelihood of conflicting interpretations of fundamental rights and freedoms, which may trigger what we call judicial fragmentation. Judicial fragmentation, described as the situation where two judicial or quasi-judicial bodies issue contrasting judgments, is certainly a double-sided phenomenon. On the one hand, it can bring adverse consequences, such as reduced legitimacy of the adjudicatory bodies, lower protection of human rights and a threat to universality. On the other hand, fragmentation is a constant element in lawmaking and possibly the only way for the law to develop and adapt to new challenges. In 2006, the International Law Commission (ILC) published a report, which found that fragmentation was significantly threatening international law.¹ Following such a worrying alert, scholars have started investigating whether fragmentation was also affecting international human rights law (IHRL), reaching the initial conclusion that the situation was not as alarming as expected.