The European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era: Universality in Transition examines transitional justice from the perspective of its impact on the universality of human rights, taking the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights as its detailed case study. The problem is twofold: there are questions about differences in human rights standards between transitional and non-transitional situations, and about differences between transitions. The European Court has been a vital part of European democratic consolidation and integration for over half a century, setting meaningful standards and offering legal remedies to the individually repressed, the politically vulnerable, and the socially excluded. After their emancipation from Soviet influence in the 1990s, and with membership of the European Union in mind for many, the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe flocked to the Convention system. The voluminous jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights can now give us some clear information about how an international human rights law regime can interact with transitional justice. The jurisprudence is divided between those cases concerning the human rights implications of explicitly transitional policies (such as lustration), and those that involve impacts upon specific democratic rights during the transition. The book presents a close examination of claims by states that transitional policies and priorities require a level of deference from the Strasbourg institutions. The book proposes that states’ claims for leeway from international human rights supervisory mechanisms during times of transition can be characterised not as arguments for cultural relativism, but for ‘transitional relativism’.

This book provides an overview of the establishment, dispersion and effects of human rights in Europe during the Cold War. The struggle for human rights did not begin at the end of the Second World War. For centuries, political associations, religious societies and individuals had been fighting for political freedom, religious tolerance, freedom of expression, freedom of thought and the right to participate in politics. However, the world was awakened by the atrocities of the Second World War and the idea that every person should have certain perpetual and inalienable rights was set out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from 1948, which contained an enumeration of international human rights standards. Adopting an interpretative framework which pulls together universal ideas, values and principles of human rights, Human Rights in Europe during the Cold War demonstrates how conflicting interests collided when the exact meaning of human rights was established. It also discusses various approaches to the idea of imposing respect for human rights in countries where they were systematically violated and assesses the outcome of international accords on human rights, in particular the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. In conclusion, this volume proposes that human rights functioned as moral support to the opposition in repressive regimes and that this was subsequently used as a tool to further system changes. Based on new archival research, this book will be of much interest to students of Cold War studies, human rights, European history, international law and IR in general.

Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien. Collection de l'Association internationale d'histoire contemporaine de l'Europe publiee sous la direction de Jean-Claude Favez. This book deals with a remarkable period of human history from the end of Second World War to the end of the Cold War, when Europe established the world's most advanced human-rights regime. During this half century a continent, divided by arms and ideology, divested of its colonial empires, and faced with a huge influx of foreigners, drew on old ideas and on post-First World War experiments, to expand the political, judicial, and diplomatic practices of human-rights advocacy and protection. The book contains the major part of the contributions of the colloquium of the 19th International Congress of Historical Sciences held in Oslo in August 2000. It represents one of the first collaborative, historical inquiries into the field of human rights. Cet ouvrage traite d'une periode importante de l'histoire europeenne, qui s'etend de la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale jusqu'a la fin de la guerre froide. Elle a ete marquee par l'instauration en Europe du regime des droits de l'homme le plus avance du monde. Durant ce demi-siecle, le continent europeen, divise sur le plan strategique et ideologique, depouille de ses possessions coloniales, confronte a un vaste afflux d'immigres, s'est engage a developper des instruments politiques, judiciaires et diplomatiques de protection et de defense des droits de l'homme. Ce livre reunit la majeure partie des contributions du colloque tenu a Oslo en aout 2000 dans le cadre du XIX(e) Congres international des sciences historiques. Il s'agit d'une des premieres enqueteshistoriques dans le domaine des droits de l'homme, entreprise avec la collaboration d'historiens de divers horizons. Contents/Contenu: Antoine Fleury: Introduction - Albert P. van Goudoever: The Problem of the International Protection of Human Rights since 1945: from International Legal Declarations to Commitment in Global Politics - Michael Biddiss: Human Rights and "Crimes against Humanity": the Development of a Supranational Concept at the Nuremberg Trials - Carole Fink: The European Court of Human Rights: Protecting Freedom of Expression - Bernard A. Cook: The Rights of Linguistic and Cultural Minorities in post-1945 Europe - Gerard Bossuat: La France, terre d'asile: l'avenir brouille d'un grand destin - Jozef Laptos: Les aspects politiques de l'action humanitaire de l'UNRRA envers les personnes deplacees en 1943-1947 - Tatiana A. Pavlova: The Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union, 1945-1975 - C. Serban Radulescu-Zoner: Les violations des droits de l'homme en Roumanie (1945-1975): reactions contradictoires des milieux politiques franais - Josefina Cuesta Bustillo: Histoire comparee des droits sociaux dans les pays d'Europe occidentale de 1945 a 1950 - Peter Malcontent: Myth or Reality? The Dutch Crusade against the Human Rights Violations in the Third World, 1973-1981 - Giovanni Barberini: La politique du Saint-Siege dans le domaine des droits de l'homme - Antoine Fleury: Les autorites suisses et la question des droits de l'homme - Jaques Bariety: La France, les droits de l'homme et la genese de la conference d'Helsinki de 1975 - Mikhail M. Narinski: L'Union sovietique et le probleme des droits de l'homme dans la premiere moitie des annees soixantedix - Floribert H. Baudet: TheNetherlands and the Rank of Denmark: Prestige as Stimulus for Human Rights Policies - Carole Fink: Afterword.

The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the origins and development of one of the most striking supranational judicial institutions. The book brings together leading scholars and practitioners to cast new light on the substantial jurisprudence and ongoing political reform of the Court. The broad analysis based on historical, legal, and social science perspectives provides new insights into the institutional crisis of the Court and identifies the lessons that can be learned for the future of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The European Court of Human Rights is in many ways is an unparalleled success. The Court embarked, during the 1970s, upon the development of a progressive and genuinely European jurisprudence. In the post-Cold War era, it went from being the guarantor of human rights solely in Western Europe to becoming increasingly involved in the transition to democracy and the rule of law in Eastern Europe. Now the protector of the human rights of some 800 million Europeans from 47 different countries, the European system is once again deeply challenged - this time by a massive case load and by the Member States' increased reluctance towards the Court. This book paves the way for a better understanding of the system and hence a better basis for choosing the direction of the next stage of development.

In four short years the international landscape has been completely reorganized. The major political fault line of the Cold War has been for the most part erased, and the foundations have been laid for an entirely new era in international relations. Serious focused analysis is urgently needed to help facilitate the process of ending the Cold War'. This volume, the product of a Canada-Soviet bilateral conference of jurists and other scholars, specialized in International Law and International Organizatin, and International Conflicts-Resolution, held at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver in June 1990, attempts to provide such analysis. Written by a professionally and scientifically distinguished team of Canadian and Soviet experts, it deals with such issues as the winding up of the Nuclear and General Disarment process, the current main proposals on strengtening the United Nations and on reforming and modernizing its main arenas and institutions, new approaches to International Trade and Commerce on a multilateral basis, developing new norms of International Environmental Protection Law, and the Intrnational protection of Human Rights. It is characterized above all by a common emphasis, Soviet and Canadian, on pragmatism, and on a rigorously empirical, problem-oriented approach and offers not merely a description of international Law as it might now happen to exist. The result is a suprisingly far-ranging consensus, not merely on the major World Community problems that should be deemed ripe for present study, but also on their most desirable, practical and realizable solutions.

Essay from the year 2001 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: International Organisations, grade: 1.3 (A), University of Leeds (POLIS), 30 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Europe has got a long tradition of human rights. Actually, the idea of "the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations is said to have its historic origins in ancient Greek philosophy and Roman law. The first official declarations of human rights, starting with the English Bill of Rights of 1688, all stand in this tradition. Hence, it is not far-fetched when Europeans see themselves as defenders of human rights principles on the international scene. Especially the European Union′s self-perception has moved in this direction. With the end of the Cold War, the right time seems to have come for politics that increasingly take into account, defend and even fight for such values: the war of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation with Yugoslavia is only one example of this tendency. But it is a good example, because the "humanitarian catastrophe" that was triggered by Western air-strikes also highlights the fact that the "new Europe" is far from being an examplary place where human rights are widely respected. The essay examines in a critical way the extent to which politics in the pre-9/11 "new Europe" were actually characterised by human rights principles. The foundations of these principles in the "old Europe" will be considered, as well as the double challenge to politics brought about by the fall of the Berlin wall and how this challenge has been met in the 1990s by political institutions (EU's internal and external human rights policies, NATO). The essay concludes with a discussion of the universality claim of human rights in an Western-dominated and internationalised world. The essay critically reviews facts and fiction

This book critically appraises the European Convention on Human Rights as it faces some daunting challenges. It argues that the Convention's core functions have subtly changed, particularly since the ending of the Cold War, and that these are now to articulate an 'abstract constitutional model' for the entire continent, and to promote convergence in the operation of public institutions at every level of governance. The implications - from national compliance, to European international relations, including the adjudication of disputes by the European Court of Human Rights - are fully explored. As the first book-length socio-legal examination of the Convention's principal achievements and failures, this study not only blends legal and social science scholarship around the theme of constitutionalization, but also offers a coherent set of policy proposals which both address the current case-management crisis and suggest ways forward neglected by recent reforms.