To appear this month: a brand new study on how international law features in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The book, published at Oxford University Press, was written by Magdalena Forowicz (University of Zürich) and is entitled ‘The Reception of International Law in the European Court of Human Rights’). The publisher boldly (but wrongly) claims that this is the “first book to analyse the interplay between the European human rights law system and international law for 15 years.” In fact, less than a year ago, a book on almost the same topic was published; see my earlier post here. Nevertheless, it is of course a very welcome contribution to an important and ongoing debate on the place of the European human rights system within public international law. This is the abstract:
The growing number of international courts and tribunals and their burgeoning case law have fuelled concerns about the fragmentation of international law. This arises as a consequence of both the specialized regimes these courts create and the multiple ways in which they may interpret international law emanating from other sources.
This book considers this issue by examining the busiest and arguably most successful international court, the European Court of Human Rights. More specifically, it focuses on the jurisprudence of the Court and its predecessor, the European Commission of Human Rights, covering a range of special human rights regimes, treaty law, and the case law of the International Court of Justice.
The author assesses whether the Court has been able to adopt a coherent, comprehensive approach to the interpretation and evaluation of international law and thus the extent to which it has been able to contribute to the development and coherence of international law.
