A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights

George Letsas

ISBN 10: 0199203431 / ISBN 13: 9780199203437

Published by Oxford Univ Pr, 2008

About this Item

300 pages. 9.25x6.50x0.50 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-0199203431

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights
• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199203431
• ISBN 13: 9780199203437
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New

About this title

Synopsis

Does the right to life under article 2 ECHR include the right to terminate one's life? Does the right to private life under article 8 ECHR include the right to sleep at night free from airplane noise? Does the right to property under article 1 Protocol 1 ECHR entitle the former King of Greece to claim compensation for the expropriation of royal property, following a referendum? Do homosexual couples have a right to adopt under article 8 ECHR? This book looks at both how the European Convention on Human Rights has, and ought to, be interpreted. Unlike a purely doctrinal approach, it aims at proposing an evaluative theory of interpretation for the European Convention on Human Rights. And, unlike a purely normative account, it seeks to locate interpretive values within the history of the ECHR by surveying and analysing all the relevant judgements of the European Court of Human Rights. Consequently, the book discusses cases as much as it discusses philosophical theories, striking an appropriate balance between the two.

Examining how law should be interpreted and what legal rights individuals have, this book raises important questions of political morality that are both capable - and in need of - principled justification. George Letsas argues that evolutive interpretation does not refer to how most European member States now understand their obligations under the Convention but to how they should understand them given the egalitarian values that they share. He defends the idea of an emerging consensus combined with a theory of autonomous concepts as a way to provide the appropriate authority for the Court to adopt an egalitarian theory of human rights.

A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a philosophically informed study of the methods of interpretation used by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. By drawing on Anglo-Americal legal, political and moral philosophy, the book also aims to provide a normative theory of the foundations of the ECHR rights.

About the Author

George Letsas is Lecturer in Law at University College London