Table Of ContentHUMAN RIGHTS BETWEEN LAW AND POLITICS
This book analyses human rights in postnational contexts, and demonstrates,
through the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, that the Margin of
Appreciation doctrine is an essential part of human rights adjudication.
Current approaches have tended to stress the instrumental value of the Margin
of Appreciation, or to give it a complementary role within the principle of pro-
portionality, while others have been wholly critical of it. In contradiction to these
approaches, this volume shows that the doctrine is a genuinely normative princi-
ple capable of balancing conflicting values. It explores to what extent the tension
between human rights and politics, embodied in the doctrine, might be under-
stood as a mutually reinforcing interplay of variables rather than an entrenched
separation. By linking the interpretation of the Margin of Appreciation doctrine
to a broader conception of human rights, understood as complex political and
moral norms, this volume argues that the doctrine can assist in the formulation of
the common good in light of the requirements of the Convention.
Volume 76 in the Series Modern Studies in European Law
Modern Studies in European Law
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Living Instrument or Extinguished Sovereignty?
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Marketing and Advertising Law in a Process of Harmonization
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Republican Europe
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For the complete list of titles in this series, see
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Human Rights between
Law and Politics
The Margin of Appreciation
in Post-National Contexts
Edited by
Petr Agha
OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON
2017
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-84946-865-7
ePDF: 978-1-50990-281-1
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Names: Agha, Petr, editor.
Title: Human rights between law and politics : the margin of appreciation in post-national
contexts / Edited by Petr Agha.
Description: Portland, Oregon : Hart Publishing, 2017. | Series: Modern studies in european law ;
volume 76 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017560 (print) | LCCN 2017022674 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781509902828 (Epub) | ISBN 9781849468657 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Human rights—Europe. | Human rights. | Convention for the Protection
of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950 November 5)
Classification: LCC KJC5132 (ebook) | LCC KJC5132 .A913 2017 (print) | DDC 323.01—dc23
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Contents
Introduction ..............................................................................................................1
Petr Agha
1. Universalism and Relativism in the Protection of Human
Rights in Europe: Politics, Law and Culture .................................................17
Steven Greer
I. Introduction ............................................................................................17
II. The Relative Universality of Human Rights ..........................................18
III. Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Minority Rights ........................21
IV. The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine under the ECHR ......................27
V. Culture and the Margin of Appreciation ...............................................31
VI. Conclusion...............................................................................................34
2. On the Varieties of Universalism in Human Rights Discourse ..................37
Ben Golder
I. Introduction: Europe, Human Rights and the Universal ......................37
II. Modernist Universalism and its Critics ..................................................41
III. The Limits of Particularism and the Returns
of the Universal .......................................................................................44
IV. Human Rights and Hegemonic Universalism .......................................49
V. Concluding Thoughts .............................................................................53
3. When Human Rights Clash in ‘the Age of Subsidiarity’: What Role
for the Margin of Appreciation?.....................................................................55
Stijn Smet
I. Introduction ............................................................................................55
II. Setting the Scene: Preliminary Remarks on the Margin
of Appreciation and Subsidiarity ...........................................................57
III. The Court, the Margin of Appreciation
and Human Rights Clashes.....................................................................59
IV. The Court and the ‘Clashing Rights’ Principle ......................................61
A. The ‘Clashing Rights’ Principle is Inconsistent
with its Own Historical Origins .....................................................62
B. The ‘Clashing Rights’ Principle Does Not Cohere
with the Court’s Wider Case Law ...................................................63
V. A Reinterpreted Role for the Margin of Appreciation
in Human Rights Clashes .......................................................................65
VI. Conclusion...............................................................................................69
vi Contents
4. The Margin of Appreciation as an Underenforcement Doctrine ...............71
Dimitrios Tsarapatsanis
I. Introduction ..........................................................................................71
II. Underenforcement, Institutional Considerations
and the MoA .........................................................................................74
III. Explaining the Underenforcement of Convention
Rights: Resource-Bounded Enforcement of the ECHR ......................78
IV. Justifying the Underenforcement of Convention
Rights: Normative Institutional Considerations .................................84
A. Shared Responsibility ...................................................................84
B. Subsidiarity....................................................................................86
C. Legitimacy .....................................................................................87
5. Anything to Appreciate?: A Sociological View of the Margin of Rights
and the Persuasive Force of Their Doctrines ................................................89
Jiří Přibáň
I. Introductory Remarks ..........................................................................89
II. Jurisprudential Triviality of the Margin of Appreciation
Doctrine: General Remarks ..................................................................90
III. The Council of Europe between the Universality
of Rights and the Particularity of Cultures..........................................92
IV. The Semantics of Rights in Politics, Law and Public Morality:
From Normative Philosophies to the Social Systems
Theory of Rights ...................................................................................93
V. Human Rights, Their Evolution and Paradoxes:
A Sociological Perspective ....................................................................97
VI. Human Rights as Power Constellations ...............................................99
VII. The Force and Limits of Legal Doctrine ............................................101
VIII. Anything But Discretionary Power? ..................................................104
IX. From Different Reasons to the Reasonable Differences
in the Margin of Appreciation of Doctrine .......................................106
X. Concluding Remarks: Human Rights, Functional
Differentiation and the Impossibility of Justice ................................109
6. The Prisoner’s Dilemma: The Margin of Appreciation as
Proportionality or Recognition? ..................................................................111
Marco Goldoni and Pablo Marshall
I. Introduction ........................................................................................111
II. Two Versions of the Margin of Appreciation ....................................112
III. The European Saga of Prisoners’ Voting Rights ................................114
A. Preliminaries ...............................................................................114
B. The Hirst Case .............................................................................115
IV. Framing the Issue: Legal or Political Constitutionalism? .................119
Contents vii
V. The MoA and Proportionality Review: Trivialising
the Right to Vote ...................................................................................122
VI. Reasoning on the Right to Vote ...........................................................126
7. Social Sensitivity, Consensus and the Margin of Appreciation ................129
Nicholas Bamforth
I. Approaches to the Margin of Appreciation ........................................130
II. Sexuality and Same-Sex Partnerships .................................................133
III. Morally Contentious Expression .........................................................140
IV. Conclusion ...........................................................................................144
8. Religious Rights and the Margin of Appreciation ......................................145
Dominic McGoldrick
I. Introduction .........................................................................................145
II. The Place of Religion in the ECHR .....................................................146
III. Religion and Human Rights ................................................................146
IV. The Jurisprudence of the ECtHR on Religious Rights .......................149
V. The MoA in Religious Cases ................................................................152
A. The Role of Consensus in Determining the MoA ......................152
B. Critiques of the Application of the MoA in Religious
Rights Cases ..................................................................................154
C. The Wide MoA and the ‘Fair Balance’ in Religion Cases ...........154
VI. Case Study: Fernandez Martinez v Spain .............................................158
VII. Concluding Comments ........................................................................166
9. The Paradox of Human Rights and the Role of the European
Court of Human Rights in Keeping it Alive ................................................169
Petr Agha
I. Preliminary Remarks ...........................................................................169
II. Human Rights as a Means, Not as an End ..........................................172
III. Human Rights as a Self-authored Normative Framework .................176
IV. Conclusions ..........................................................................................182
Index .......................................................................................................................185
viii
Introduction
PETR AGHA
W
HEN WE READ the literature dealing with the jurisprudence of the
European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ‘Court’ or ‘ECtHR’) and
its practice and argumentation, one particular part of its jurisprudence
seems to stand out—the judge-made interpretive principle, the so-called margin
of appreciation (hereinafter ‘MoA’ or ‘doctrine’). The reader often learns that the
MoA is immensely dangerous for the preservation of human rights (culture) or
that it is an instrument which serves as an apology for yielding universal human
rights to the wishes of governments to limit human rights.1 The abundance of
references to the margin of appreciation in the case law of the Court has received
severe criticism from scholars, and also occasionally from individual judges of
the Court itself. They all seem to arrive at a very similar conclusion—the role
and function of universal human rights framework and that of the Court, to act
as external guardians, is severely hindered by the prevalence of the MoA in the
jurisprudence of the Court.
More specifically, we can identify three broad groups which somehow summa-
rise the many fronts on which the MoA is criticised. First, the margin of appre-
ciation doctrine is often seen as an inconsistent and opaque part of the Court’s
jurisprudence. It is criticised for how it undermines the normative guidance of
substantive rights and how it allows normative ambiguity to enter the decision-
making process of the Court. Such erosion in turn undermines the ability of the
Strasbourg system to safeguard the Convention rights and leads to inconsistent
standards of human rights in the seemingly similar cases. Second, undermining
normative expectation undermines the role and legitimacy of the Court itself. If
the MoA becomes an integral part of the practice of the Court, the Court itself
runs the risk of effectively abdicating its supervisory role. Third, the MoA tends
to infuse the practice of the Court with subjective and relativist standards, which
undermine the very idea behind the Convention and the concept of human rights
in general, that is, universally valid standards.
Judge De Meyer, writing in his dissenting opinion in the Z v Finland case,
famously summarises the common attitude we come across when it comes to the
1 See, eg, CS Feingold, ‘The Doctrine of Margin of Appreciation and the European Convention
on Human Rights’ (1977) 53 Notre Dame Lawyer 90, 95, 106; E Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation,
Consensus and Universal Standards’ (1998–99) 31 New York University Journal of International Law
and Politics 843; G Letsas, ‘Two Concepts of the Margin of Appreciation’ (2006) 4 Oxford Journal of
Legal Studies 705.
