Studies on Human Rights Conventions: Series Number 5: The International Human Rights Judiciary and National Parliaments: Europe and Beyond

The emerging international human rights judiciary (IHRJ) threatens national democratic processes and 'hollows out' the scope of domestic and democratic decision-making, some argue. This new analysis confronts this head on by examining the interplay between national parliaments and the IHRJ, proposing that it advances parliament's efforts. Taking Europe and the European Court of Human Rights as its focus - drawing on theory, doctrine and practice - the authors answer a series of key questions. What role should parliaments play in realising human rights? Which factors influence the effects of the IHRJ on national parliaments' efforts? How can the IHRJ adjust its influence on parliamentary process? And what triggers the backlash against the IHRJ from parliaments and when? Here, the authors lay foundations for better informed scholarship and legal practice in the future, as well as a better understanding of how to improve the effectiveness and validity of the IHRJ.

Matthew Saul is a Researcher at PluriCourts, a Centre of Excellence for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order at the Universitetet i Oslo. He publishes on aspects of general international law, international human rights law, and international adjudication. Saul is the editor of International Law and Dispute Settlement: New Techniques and Problems (2010) and International Law and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policy (2015). His monograph Popular Governance of Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Role of International Law was published by Cambridge in 2014.

Andreas Follesdal is Professor of Political Philosophy, Faculty of Law at the Universitetet i Oslo, Principal Investigator, European Research Council Advanced Grant MultiRights 2011–16, on the Legitimacy of Multi-Level Human Rights Judiciary, and Co-Director of PluriCourts, a Centre of Excellence for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order. Føllesdal's recent publications include The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Regimes (Cambridge, 2013), and Constituting Europe: The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context (Cambridge, 2013).

Geir Ulfstein is Professor of International Law at the Department of Public and International Law, Universitetet i Oslo and Co-Director of PluriCourts - Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, University of Oslo. He has been Director of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Universitetet i Oslo (2004–8). Ulfstein is co-editor of UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy (Cambridge, 2012) and Making Treaties Work: Human Rights, Environment and Arms Control (Cambridge, 2007), and co-author of The Constitutionalization of International Law (2009).