Over the past few decades, European countries have witnessed a proliferation of legal norms concerning marginalised individuals and minorities who increasingly invoke them in front of courts to assert their rights and claim protection. The present volume explores the relationship between law, rights and social mobilisation in Europe. It specifically enquires into the extent and ways in which legal processes and entitlements are mobilised by less privileged social actors to advance their rights claims and pursue social change. Most distinctly, it explores such processes in the context of the multi-level European system, characterised by the existence of multiple legal and judicial arenas at the national, subnational and supranational/transnational level. In such a complex system of law and governance in Europe, concepts like legal opportunity structures, as well as the factors shaping them need to be reconceptualised. How does the multi-level European context distinctly shape the nature and salience of rights, as well as their mobilisation by individuals and minority actors?

Prompted by an unprecedented rise of litigation since the 1990s, this book examines how the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) system and the Strasbourg Court interact with states and non-governmental actors to influence domestic change. Focusing on European Court of Human Rights litigation and state implementation of judgments related to minority discrimination and asylum/migration, it argues that a fundamental transformation of the Convention system has been under way. Repeat and strategic litigation, shifting methods of supervision and state implementation to remedy systemic violations, and above all the growing engagement of civil society and non-governmental actors, have prompted a distinctive trend of human rights experimentalism. The emergence of experimentalism has profound implications for the legitimacy, effectiveness and further reform of the ECHR system. This study provides an original constitutive account of regional human rights regimes and how they are activated by societal actors to claim rights, advance case law, and pressure for domestic legal and policy change. It will be of interest to international law and international relations scholars, political scientists, specialists on the ECHR, the Strasbourg Court, as well as to scholars interested in the human rights of immigrants and minorities.

This book considers the domestic implementation of ECtHR judgments, and their impact upon national laws, policies and institutions. Since the turn of the millennium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide 'rights revolution'. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Convention critical guides to literature of Human Rights and its highly acclaimed judicial tribunal in Strasbourg is the extensive obligations of the contracting states to give observable effect to its judgments. Dia Anagnostou explores the domestic execution of the European Court of Human Rights' judgments and dissects the variable patterns of implementation within and across states. She relates how marginalised individuals, civil society and minority actors strategically take recourse in the Strasbourg Court to challenge state laws, policies and practices. These bottom-up dynamics influencing the domestic implementation of human rights have been little explored in the scholarly literature until now. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, Anagnostou goes beyond the existing studies - mainly legal and descriptive - and contributes to the flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics.

Domestic implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments, and their impact upon national laws, policies and institutions. Since the turn of the millenium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide 'rights revolution'. An unprecedented expansion of its case load, along with arguably high levels of compliance with its judgments, testify to its growing authority and perceived effectiveness, akin to Europe's constitutional court in human rights matters. Despite its significance as such, the effects of judgments on national laws, policies and institutions have been little explored. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, this volume seeks to fill a gap, going beyond the existing, mainly legal and descriptive scholarship. Some of the pertinent questions it asks are: Do national authorities implement Court judgments and what is their impact on national laws, policies and practices? How and why do different and less privileged social actors mobilise the human rights norms contained in the Convention and in the Court's case law? Does this case law influence rights-expansive policy reform? More broadly, the book aims to contribute to a flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics. It covers eight country-based case studies on state implementation and domestic impact of the ECHR judgements. It provides a focus on disadvantaged social actors. It combines a top-down perspective of official institutions and actors involved in the implementation of judgements, with an interest in the bottom-up processes of social mobilisation.