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Transnational constitutional aspects of the European Court of Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2021

GEIR ULFSTEIN
GEIR ULFSTEIN*
Affiliation:
PluriCourts, Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo, St. Olavs plass 5, 0166Oslo, Norway
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is an international court operating in the international legal order. Its judgments are not given direct effect in national law. In this sense we have a system of legal pluralism between international and national law. But the ECtHR has constitutional effects in national law through the weight placed on the Court’s practice by national courts. Therefore, constitutional principles are applicable in the interaction between the ECtHR and national courts. This article discusses the transnational constitutional aspects of the Court, and how this should guide the roles of, respectively, the ECtHR and national courts.

Keywords

constitutionalismcourtsdemocracyhuman rightsrule of lawsubsidiarity
Type
Special Issue: Judicial Authority, Legitimacy and the (International) Rule of Law
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 151 - 174
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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66 Protocol No 16 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, CETS No 214, opened for signature on 2 October 2013 and entered into force on 1 August 2018. The first advisory opinion was rendered by the Court on the basis of a request by the French Court of Cassation in 2019: Advisory opinion concerning the recognition in domestic law of a legal parent-child relationship between a child born through a gestational surrogacy arrangement abroad and the intended mother, Advisory Opinion (Grand Chamber), Request No P16-2018-001 (10 April 2019).

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