Subsidiarity, legitimacy, and the European Court of Human Rights Reto Walther

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walther, Reto, author.

Series:

International courts and tribunals series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

European Court of Human Rights.

Subsidiarity--European Union countries.

Subsidiarity.

European Union countries.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Oxford University Press, 2026.

Oxford Oxford University Press [2026]

Summary:

Often accused of illegitimate interference with its member states' political choices, the European Court of Human Rights, like other international institutions operating outside of any democratic polity, faces serious concerns about its democratic legitimacy. 'Subsidiarity, Legitimacy, and the European Court of Human Rights' is a full-length analysis of the ECHR from a separation-of-powers perspective, offering a compelling defence of subsidiarity as crucial to the democratic legitimacy of the ECHR, which contains insights relevant to many international treaty systems

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Series Editors' Preface

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contents

Cases of the European Court of Human Rights

1 International Authority: Legitimacy Through Subsidiarity? The Case of the Strasbourg Court

A) Introduction

B) The Strasbourg 'counter-majoritarian difficulty'

C) Approach and framing of the study

a) Subsidiarity qua legal fact

b) Political equality and democracy

c) Viability and effectiveness

D) Outline

a) Subsidiarity: its meaning and implications in the Convention system

B) Subsidiarity: the Court's most important practices

c) Chapter-by-chapter overview

2 An Approximation to Subsidiarity

B) Roots, history, and traditions

a) Major strands of thought

b) Subsidiarity in international law

C) Who decides what, when, and how?

D) Subsidiarity in the Convention system: the basics

a) Who is subsidiarity about?

b) What is subsidiarity about?

c) What is subsidiarity to do?

E) Convention subsidiarity as requiring justification of the Court's authority

3 The Rise of Subsidiarity in the Convention System

A) Introduction

B) The Court's transformation

a) Self-assertion

b) Empowerment

c) Constitutionalization

C) The States' backlash

a) Criticisms

b) Pushback

c) Paradigm shift?

D) State indecisiveness and Court activism

E) Subsidiarity: what's in a name?

4 The Concerns Behind the Court's Subsidiary Role

B) State sovereignty and the Court's control

C) National leeway and European standards

D) Democratic politics and judicial review

a) The Court's review as a challenge to political democracy

B) The over-representation of the few and under-representation of the many in the Court

c) The Court as an epistemologically superior 'forum of principle'?

d) The Court's judicial supremacy as a prerequisite of political democracy?

E) Democratic concerns as justification of the subsidiarity principle

5 Liberal Rights and Democratic Politics

B) Liberalism and democracy

a) Pretentious judges and circular democrats

b) Rights as democratic self-constraints?

c) Self-constraints and reasonable disagreement

d) A matter of approach?

C) Law and politics

A) Political and legal decision-making

b) Political and legal authority

c) Constitutional authority as hybrid

D) The Convention system between undemocratic liberalism and illiberal democracy

6 The Court Between Law and Politics

B) The Court's judicial law-making

a) The politics of rights-based review

b) The Court's practice

c) The Court as a politico-legal hybrid

C) The Court's democratic vacuum

D) Two opposite assessments

7 Rights: Moral Truths or Political Claims?

B) Supra-national legal constitutionalism

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on February 12, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version :

Print version Walther, Reto. Subsidiarity, legitimacy, and the European Court of Human Rights

ISBN:

9780198921455

0198921454

9780198921448

0198921446

OCLC:

1572707112

Publisher Number:

CIPO000352474

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license