Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:50:36.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Increasingly Marginal Appreciation of the Margin-of-Appreciation Doctrine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among the women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.

What is so fundamental in terms of the protection of human rights in Europe that it requires the same standards for all countries and what, by contrast, would be better dealt with by each State's organs in line with verbigratia Michael Walzer's-related notion of “thick morality”?. Where should the line be drawn between unity and diversity notwithstanding the resulting risk of human rights cultural relativism associated to the latter?. On what grounds could the axiomatic universality of human rights possibly be connoted in a continent which prides itself on possessing the most developed regional system for the protection of human rights world-wide in view of the resulting risk of legal contagion to other systems for the protection of human rights and, even, to general international law that such a practice can trigger?. At the end of the day, these are the sort of questions that the study of the margin-of- appreciation doctrine raises. The Trojan Horse-like character of the Strasbourg's judge-made margin-of-appreciation doctrine within the European human rights protection system has long since bothered human rights lawyers. Cases of reliance on this review doctrine have been generally criticised as denials of justice for individuals, abdications by the Court of its duty of adjudication in difficult or sensitive issues or as a judicial diluting technique of the strict conditions laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights. This line of criticism, aimed at what from the viewpoint of some occupants of the bench is seen as “a well established and legitimate part of the convention's jurisprudence”, has been reinforced by the entry of 21 new Eastern and Central European contracting parties to the Council of Europe following the 1989-1991 events. With a current membership of 46 States, all of which have ratified the 1950 Rome Convention, it is further feared that the doctrine will increasingly become an open door for abusive limitations in the exercise of human rights in states who traditionally leaned towards human rights cultural relativism. Against this background, I will briefly look into the technical criteria used by Strasbourg's judicial interpreters to factually implement this “much maligned notion” or, as one commentator has put it, this “manière pseudo-technique d'évoquer le pouvoir discrétionnaire que les organes de Strasbourg ont estimé reconnu aux Etats par la Convention dans certains cas”. I will, secondly, provide a basic overview of the general doctrinal positions one can adopt regarding this long debated question.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 6 , 01 June 2006 , pp. 611 - 623
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Sir Thomas Browne Urn- Burial, initial quotation in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe (1841).Google Scholar

2 See: Walzer, Michael Thick and Thin: Moral argument at home and abroad (1994). For an application of Walzer's notions to the doctrine of the margin of appreciation, See: A.,James Sweeney, Margins of Appreciation: Cultural Relativity and the European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era, 54International Comparative Law Quarterly, 459 (2005).Google Scholar

3 See:Mahoney, Paul, Marvellous Richness of Diversity or Invidious Cultural Relativism?, 19 Human Rights Law Journal, 4, a para.1 (1998).Google Scholar

4 See: McDonald, R.St.John, The Margin of Appreciation in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, in Il Diritto Internazionale al tempo della sua codificazione: Studi in onore di Roberto Ago, Vol. III, 187, (Dott.A. Giuffrè Ed.,1987).Google Scholar

5 Since November 1990, 21 countries of central and eastern Europe have acceded the Council of Europe (the most recent being Serbia and Montenegro in April 2003) See: http://www.coe.int/T/e/Com/ about_coe/ (last visited 25 April 2006).Google Scholar

6 The latest State to join the system was Monaco on the 5 October 2004, it ratified the ECHR in 30/11/2005. See: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=005&CM=8&DF=4/28/2006&CL=ENG (last visited 25 April 2006).Google Scholar

7 213 UNTS 221, ETS 5, UKTS 71 of 1953), signed at Rome 4 Nov. 1950; entered into force 3 Sept. 1953, Council of Europe (hereinafter ECHR).Google Scholar

8 See, supra, note 2 at 461.Google Scholar

9 See, supra, note 3 at 1.Google Scholar

10 Greer, Steven, La Marge d'aprreciation: interprétation et pouvoir discrétionnaire dans le cadre de la convention europpéenne des droits de l'homme,17 Dossiers sur les droits de l'homme, Editions du Conseil de l'Europe(2000).Google Scholar

11 See: AndrewClapham, , Symbiosis in International Human Rights Law: the Ocalan Case and the Evolving Law on the Death Sentence, 1 Journal of International Criminal Justice, 475(2003).Google Scholar

12 See e.g. : 1)Morrison, C, The Margin of Appreciation in European Human Rights Law,6 Revue de Droits de l'Homme (Human Rights Journal), 286 (1967); 2) ThomasA. O'Donnel, The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine: Standards in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, 4 No.4 Human Rights Quarterly 474, 477 (1982);3) See, supra note 4 at 192.Google Scholar

13 Verbigratia articles 2, 3 and 4 and most elements of article 5 and 6. See: Johan Callewaert, Is There a Margin of Appreciation in the Application of Articles 2,3 and 4 of the Convention?19 Human Rights Law Journal 6,and Jeroen Schokkenbroek, The Basis, Nature and Application of the Margin-of-.Appreciation Doctrine in the Case-Law of the European Court Rights-General Report 19 Human Rights Law Journal. 30, 34 (1998)Google Scholar

14 For a specific analysis, see: Michael Boyle, The Margin of Appreciation and Derogation under Article 15: Ritual Incantation or Principle? 19 Human Rights Law Journal 23 (1998)Google Scholar

15 For a specific analysis, see: Jeroen Schokkenbroek, The Prohibition of Discrimination in Article 14 of the Convention and the Margin of Appreciation 19 Human Rights Law Journal.20 (1998).Google Scholar

16 See : Kastanas, Elias, Unité et diversité: notion autonomes et marge d'appreciation dans la jurisprudence de la cour europénne de droits de l'homme, Bruylant, 1999Google Scholar

17 See, supra, note 12.Google Scholar

18 See: Handyside v. The United Kingdom of7 Dec.1976, No. 24, 1 EHRR 523.Google Scholar

19 See, supra, note 4 at 191.Google Scholar

20 See, supra, note 13 at 35.Google Scholar

21 See: 1) MacDonald, R.St.John, The Margin of Appreciation, in The European System for the Protection of Human Rights,83 (MacDonald et al. eds., 1993) 2) Eva Brems, Human Rights: Universality and Diversity (2001). 3) H.C.Yourow, The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in the Dynamics of European Human Rights Jurisprudence (1996); and the several contributions to The Doctrine of the Margin of Appreciation under the European Convention on Human Rights: Its Legitimacy in Theory and Application in Practice, 19 Human Rights Law Journal 1 (1998).Google Scholar

22 See: P. Van Dijk and G.J.H. Van Hoof Theory and Practice of the European Convention of Human Rights, 3rd Ed., 87 (1998).Google Scholar

23 See, supra, note 18.Google Scholar

24 Sunday Times Case, 26 April 1979,No.30, 2 EHRR 245.Google Scholar

25 See, supra, note 12.Google Scholar

26 See, supra, note 15at 35-36.Google Scholar

27 See: Prebensen, Soren C., The Margin of Appreciation and Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Convention 19 Human Rights Law Journal 13, 17 (1998).Google Scholar

28 See: Eur. Court H.R., Klass v. Germany, Judgment of 6 September 1978, Series A, No.28, 49 and Eur. Court H.R, Leander v. Sweden, Judgment of 26 March 1987, Series A, No.116, 59.Google Scholar

29 See, supra, note 28 at 35.Google Scholar

30 MacDonald, R.St.,John, The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rigths,in Academy of European Law Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, Volume I, Book 2, 95, 124 (1992).Google Scholar

31 See: Christine Goodwin v. The United Kingdom, 11 July 2002, para. 90.Google Scholar

32 See, supra, note 31 at para.74.Google Scholar

33 See, supra, note 12 at 489.Google Scholar

34 See: Ovey, Clare, The Margin of Appreciation and Article 8 of the Convention in The Doctrine of the Margin under the European Convention on Human Rights: Its Legitimacy in Theory and Application in Practices 19 Human Rights Law Journal 10 (1998) .Google Scholar

35 See, supra, note 13.Google Scholar

36 Ireland v. United Kingdom, 18 January 1978, No.25, 2 EHRR 25.Google Scholar

37 See, supra, note 14.Google Scholar

38 Eur. Court H.R., Dudgeon v. U.K., Judgment of 22 October 1981, Series A, No. 45, para. 52.Google Scholar

39 Eur. Court H.R., Buckley v. U.K., Judgment of 25 September 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV, 16, para. 74.Google Scholar

40 See, supra, note 13.Google Scholar

41 See Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC. “The European Convention on Human Rights in the New Architecture of Europe: General Report”. Proceedings of the 8th International Colloquy on the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe) (1995), at 236-237, cited in Paul Mahoney, Marvellous Richness of Diversity or Invidious Cultural Relativism?, 19 Human Rights Law Journal, 4, a para.1 (1998), at 1.Google Scholar

42 See, supra, note 3.Google Scholar

43 See, supra, note 16.Google Scholar

44 See: Benvenisti, Eyal, Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 843 (1998-1999).Google Scholar

45 For an attempt in this sense, see: Michael R. Hutchinson The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in the European Court of Human Rights 48 International Comparative Law Quarterly 638 (1999).Google Scholar

46 For an early defence, see: Rosario Sapienza,Sul Margine d'Apprezzamento Statate nel Sistema della Convenzione Europea dei Diritti del Uomo LXXIRivista di Diritto Internazionale 571 (1991).Google Scholar

47 See, supra, note 3.Google Scholar

48 See, supra, note 3.Google Scholar

49 See: Lord Marclay of Clashfern, The Margin of Appreciation and the Need for a Balance, in Protection des droits de l'homme: la perspective européenne, Mélanges à la mémoire de Rolv Ryssdal, 837, (Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2000).Google Scholar

50 See: MacDonald, R. St. John, The Margin of Appreciation in The European System for the Protection of Human Rights, 83, (MacDonald et al. eds., 1993).Google Scholar

51 See, supra, note 13 at 30.Google Scholar

52 See, supra, note 41.Google Scholar

53 See, supra, note 12 at 496.Google Scholar

54 See, supra, note 10 at 35.Google Scholar

55 See, supra note 21.Google Scholar

56 See: Shany, Yuval, Towards and General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?, 16 European Journal of International Law 907 (2006).Google Scholar

57 See, supra, note 21.Google Scholar

58 For an opposite view against its extrapolation to other systems of human rights protection because “not only would universal standards be undermined, but also the very authority of international human rights bodies to develop such standards in the long run also be compromised”, see, supra, note 44.Google Scholar

59 See: the Preamble of the ECHR available at: http://www.echr.coe.int/echr.Google Scholar