The introduction lays out the book’s aim as providing an investigation into the emancipation of the ECHR from an international agreement with a relatively weak enforcement structure into a sophisticated legal system. The introduction argues that researching supranationality under the Convention offers a fresh descriptive-analytical perspective on the ECHR as well as a deconstruction of the ECtHR’s authority. Carrying forward legal-institutional scholarship and studies on the domestification of the ECHR, it also introduces the idea of reviving the notion of Convention community. Lastly, the introduction provides an overview of the book’s structure and presents the line of argument and the methodology adopted in the different chapters.

The conclusion summarizes the supranational aspects of the ECHR and reflects on the wider narrative of supranationalization of the ECHR, including its driving factors and countertrends. It further demonstrates that growing resistance towards the ECtHR, as far as it goes beyond system inherent criticism, may partly be the result of increased openness and integration in the first place and could in fact lead to a refinement of Convention law. The ECHR’s supranational aspects also lend themselves to a communitarian perspective. The conclusion therefore argues that the findings of the study allow to give meaning to the notion of Convention community which is characterized by Convention rights as community interest norms, for the protection of which the ECtHR enjoys an inalienable core of autonomy, membership of domestic authorities and natural and legal persons as well as subsidiarity and moderated supremacy of Convention law as ordering principles.