The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereafter the Convention) has been in operation for almost 40 years, the Commission and the court for more than 30 years. In the meantime, recourse to Strasbourg has become a built-in mechanism of judicial review in the Member States. In particular, art 25 of the Convention which entitles individuals to plead a violation of the Convention has turned into a corner-stone of a working system of human rights protection, since the court's first decision in 1960. Even though the court's output cannot compare to internal state jurisdictions, applications to Strasbourg have risen dramatically over the years.
Law and culture are inextricably linked. Hence, a meaningful comparison of laws will have to take into account the cultural background and the context. The relevance of the ‘culture-factor’ in comparison depends on the nature and the scope of the project. This culture-oriented approach sensitizes for the relativity of legal systems which, in turn, calls for a prudent assessment of the common ground. It should also foster (more) interdisciplinary cooperation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.