The Power of European Justice: Redefining Power Relations from the European Court of Human Rights

Over the past two decades, jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has established important principles on controversial issues. From balancing individual and minority rights against majority norms to confronting illiberal states such as Russia, the coercive power of European justice has been put to the test. Thus, while international courts may be seen as inherently weak institutions, insofar as they rely on member states to enforce their decisions, the Council of Europe’s legal regime has proven its effectiveness thanks to transnational accountability mechanisms. On the one hand, European Court has played a key role arbitrating between European institutions and dissenting states. Several cases against Russia show, for example, the confrontation between two competing visions of democracy: Russia defends an illiberal democracy that regulates and imposes the dominant values of a majority, whereas the ECtHR, on the other hand, defends a liberal democratic model in which everyone can develop his/her life in matters of gender and sexuality (ECtHR, 2010, 2017). Although controversial Russian legislation has not been amended, Russia has been held accountable to European institutions. On the other hand, the ECtHR has taken liberalism to its extreme by upholding the rights of children above the rights of their parents, i.e. that the freedom of each individual should not be curtailed even by those who act on their behalf as legal guardians (ECtHR, 2011; 2017). These decisions marked a new configuration of power relations, transforming fundamental social structures such as kinship and intergenerational relations. The literature on European justice has addressed certain national effects of the ECtHR (Christoffersen and Madsen, 2011; Seibert-Fohr and Villiger, 2014), this research deepens this analysis by examining the transformations of the new configuration of power relations on the basis of concrete European case law. Based on a detailed documentary and empirical examination of various sources, this presentation examines the fields of justice (ECtHR case law), legislative (European Parliament archives), and public policy (European Commission archives) regarding the politics of law and courts. I will present the most recent results of my postdoctoral research on European institutions (Marie Curie Fellowship) articulating a comparative law approach and a governmentality perspective on European judicial and political transformations. One of this presentation contributions lies in the study of the scope of European institutions through different types of regulations revealing symptoms of major transformations in European societies. References: ECtHR, 2010, Case of Alekseyev v. Russia, (Applications nos. 4916/07, 25924/08 and 14599/09), Strasbourg. ECtHR, 2011, Case of Dojan and Others v. Germany, (Application no. 319/08), Strasbourg. ECtHR, 2017, Case of Bayev and Others v. Russia, (Applications nos. 67667/09 and 2 others), Strasbourg. Christoffersen J and Madsen MR, 2011, "Introduction: The European Court of Human Rights between law and politics", In Christoffersen J and Madsen MR (eds) The European Court ofHuman Rights between law and politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–16. Seibert-Fohr A and Villiger ME (eds), 2014, Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights – Effects and Implementation, New York: Routledge.