Transitional Jurisprudence and the ECHR
Justice, Politics and Rights

The European Convention on Human Rights has been a standard-setting text for transitions to peace and democracy in states throughout Europe. This book analyses the content, role and effects of the jurisprudence of the European Court relating to societies in transition. It features a wide range of transitional challenges, from killings by security forces in Northern Ireland to property restitution in East Central Europe, and from political upheaval in the Balkans to the position of religious minorities and Roma. Has the European Court developed a specific transitional jurisprudence? How do politics affect the ways in which the Court's judgments are implemented? Does the Court's case-law itself become woven into narratives of struggle in transitional societies? This book seeks to answer these questions by highlighting the unique role of Europe's main guardian of human rights, the Court in Strasbourg. It includes a comparison with the Inter-American and African human rights systems.

1. Introduction Michael Hamilton and Antoine Buyse; 2. Transitional emergency jurisprudence: derogation and transition Fionnuala Ní Aoláin; 3. Rights and victims, martyrs and memories: the European Court of Human Rights and political transition in Northern Ireland Kris Brown; 4. The ECHR and transition: confronting the consequences of authoritarianism and conflict Christopher Lamont; 5. Freedom of religion and democratic transition James Sweeney; 6. The truth, the past and the present: Article 10 of the ECHR and situations of transition Antoine Buyse; 7. Transition, political loyalties and the order of the state Michael Hamilton; 8. Transition, equality and non-discrimination Anne Smith and Rory O'Connell; 9. Closing the door on restitution: the European Court of Human Rights Tom Allen and Benedict Douglas; 10. The inter-American human rights system and transitional processes Diego Rodriquez-Pinzon; 11. The 'transitional' jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Gina Bekker; 12. Conclusions Antoine Buyse and Michael Hamilton.

Antoine Buyse is an associate professor and senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Utrecht University.
Michael Hamilton is an associate professor in the Legal Studies Department of the Central European University, Budapest, and senior lecturer at the Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster.