Causes and Consequences of Migrant Rights litigation in the Strasbourg Court

• In Event: Europe’s Courts: Between Bottom-up Mobilization and Popular Backlash

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of complaints brought by migrants and asylum seekers against European states to prevent their deportation, complain against detention, or claim asylum, among others. This is a notable development in comparison to the earlier period up to the 1980s, when such legal recourse had been limited. Migrants’ recourse in the Strasbourg Court is characteristic of a broader and expanding phenomenon of international rights litigation in different issue areas and parts of the world. From a liberal perspective, international relations scholars view litigation as a distinctive and consequential feature of international courts with individual and private access. They depict it as a primary mechanism for enforcing international human rights law (Simmons 2009), as well as instrumental in the growth of international judiciaries as bodies of extended authority and legitimacy (Alter 2014). Despite the proliferation of international judicial bodies and increased individual recourse to those, there are few studies that explore the causes and consequences of international rights litigation. The proposed paper shall begin to fill this gap. It shall combine a quantitative description of litigation trends with qualitative case studies to explore the causes and consequences of human rights litigation related to migrants and asylum seekers. Why do migrants and asylum seekers take recourse to the ECHR system in such numbers, what is the nature of such legal action, and does human rights litigation promote greater state protection of migrants and asylum seekers? Does such litigation influence rights expansive, national laws and practices, or does it mostly help redress individual rights abuses?

Author

• Dia Anagnostou, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)