Substantially rewritten and updated for this new edition, Human Rights in Europe, 4th Edition provides a comprehensive and readable introduction to the most advanced international human rights system in the world - the European Convention on Human Rights - which has been in force since 1953 and now protects the rights of 800 million people. Since the third edition was published in 1993, there have been a number of significant additions to the Convention case law and a major change to the supervisory arrangements in the form of Protocol No. 11, which came into force in November 1998. Full account is taken of these developments, together with relevant developments outside Strasbourg. The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights is regularly cited and followed by courts around the world. Professor Merrills skillfully guides the reader through the institutional and substantive aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights and places those matters in the context of broader European developments.
After a historical introduction, the authors provide a detailed analysis of the case law on the rights protected by the Convention and its Protocols. These chapters, which comprise the main part of the book, not only contain a wide-ranging account of the Strasbourg jurisprudence, but also analyze the distinctive style of reasoning to be found in this case law, clearly illustrated with practical examples. They then review the new European Court of Human Rights, set up in 1998, contrasting it with the original arrangements for supervising the Convention and conclude by considering the future of the Convention.
The book will be of particular interest to law students, law school professors, and practicing lawyers concerned with human rights.
J.G. Merrills is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sheffield, and Professor of Public International Law since 1985. Apart from time spent as a visiting lecturer in Canada and New Zealand, he has been at Sheffield since graduating from Oxford. He has written many books and articles in the area of public international law, as well as on international law generally. He was for eight years an alternate member of the UN Sub-Commission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
The late A.H. Robertson was Director of Human Rights, Council of Europe; Professor Associe, University of Paris I and Simon Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester.