Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights as a Source of Human Rights Law

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights with its case law has been for decades a particularly important actor in developing human rights law in Europe and beyond. At the same time the question as to the legal nature of its case law has not received a single answer. Most traditionally, the answer to this question has been that case law is binding on all States parties to the Convention at least to the extent that it contains lex interpretata as part of the Court’s authoritative interpretation of the Convention entrusted to it by the founding States of the Convention regime. In accordance with the Convention’s Article 46, judgments of the Court are binding on the respondent State. At the same time, judgments are followed more generally by the Contracting Parties while the Court’s case law has added to the original – admittedly open-ended – text of the Convention. This article explores the impact of civil law tradition, Anglo-Saxon tradition and the theory of sources of international law on better conceptualization of the legal nature of the case law of the Court. It arrives at the conclusion that at least for the time being, there is a coherent tendency in more advanced legal systems to acknowledge that the courts and judges do occasionally make law. The example of the European Court of Human Rights goes along with these developments. It is argued that case law is a material source of law while the overall consolidation of the Convention system begs for the conclusion that the Court’s case law has become a formal source of law.