Now available in paperback! On February 13, 2015, a Seminar took place in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg titled "The Right to Life: Twenty Years of Legal Developments since McCann v. the United Kingdom." The Seminar celebrated the work and achievements of the Court's Deputy Registrar, Michael O'Boyle, on the occasion of his retirement. This volume contains the submissions made during and after the Seminar. The order of inclusion of the submissions is based on the three working sessions of the Seminar. [Subject: Human Rights Law, European Law]

The model system created by the European Convention on Human Rights is internationally renowned. The rights it protects are among the most important, covering not only civil and political rights, but also certain social and economic rights, such as the right to respect for personal possessions. The European Court of Human Rights stands at the heart of the protection mechanism guaranteeing these rights. It is now an entirely judicial system since the adoption and entry into force of Protocol No. 11, which reorganised the whole system and extended the Court's jurisdiction. The Court's excessive caseload is a problem, though, and this has led to the further improvements contained in Protocol No. 14, designed to strengthen the operation and effectiveness of the Court.

Confusion about the differences between the Council of Europe (the parent body of the European Court of Human Rights) and the European Union is commonplace amongst the general public. It even affects some lawyers, jurists, social scientists and students. This book will enable the reader to distinguish clearly between those human rights norms which originate in the Council of Europe and those which derive from the EU, vital for anyone interested in human rights in Europe and in the UK as it prepares to leave the EU. The main achievements of relevant institutions include securing minimum standards across the continent as they deal with increasing expansion, complexity, multidimensionality, and interpenetration of their human rights activities. The authors also identify the central challenges, particularly for the UK in the post-Brexit era, where the components of each system need to be carefully distinguished and disentangled.

The right to life is the prime individual right in treaty and constitution systems of fundamental rights. The whole approach to protecting this right has changed considerably with scientific and medical advances. Whereas traditionally the concern was to protect life from all threats, today there is the additional very prominent issue of human, scientific and medical intervention in the life-giving process in such forms as abortion, medically assisted procreation, embryo research, cloning and euthanasia. This comparative analysis of the case law of Europes constitutional courts and the Council of Europes European Court of Human Rights examines the nature and scope of the right to life in order to determine whether there is a common legal approach to the question in Europe