I somehow missed to highlight this earlier, but last year an important book on the often-overlooked other contentious role of the Court (beyond deciding in individual cases) was published. Isabella Risini has written The Inter-State Application under the European Convention on Human Rights. Between Collective Enforcement of Human Rights and International Dispute Settlement in the series ‘International Studies in Human Rights’ of Brill-Martinus Nijhoff, This is the abstract:
‘The Inter-State Application under the European Convention on Human Rights provides the first comprehensive monograph about the State-to-State human rights enforcement mechanism. The functions of the mechanism include also dispute settlement aspects, which are related to the compulsory jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court. The study provides a full account of the development of the Inter-State Application under Article 33 ECHR and puts its case law in the relevant historical and institutional context. The analysis concludes with detailed reform considerations which are situated within the discussion about the role of the European Court of Human Rights. The focus lies on the possibility to address and improve systemic human rights deficits beyond the single case. The Court’s growing inter-State docket evidences the need for legal certainty.’
