Human rights courts as norm-brokers

Hamilton, Michael and Buyse, Antoine (2018) Human rights courts as norm-brokers. Human Rights Law Review, 18 (2). pp. 205-232. ISSN 1461-7781

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Abstract

This article develops an understanding of human rights courts as ‘norm brokers’. We regard ‘norm-brokering’ as an exegetic method of judicial reasoning, ultimately concerned with reason-giving and the quality of justification. It entails robust engagement with alternative norms raised in the course of human rights adjudication. Norm-brokering thus involves much more than the mere cataloguing of alternative norms—and, at a minimum, a methodical approach to the question of normative harmonization. We suggest that the process of norm-brokering contributes to ‘public reason’ by enhancing the intelligibility of judgments. This, in turn, helps confound legitimacy-based critiques of human rights courts. The argument is supported by an analysis of 10 years’ worth of European Court of Human Rights judgments, focusing on the ways in which norms from the Inter-American human rights system are relied upon (or not) by the Strasbourg Court.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: norm-brokering,interpretative methodology,human rights courts,public reason,legitimacy,marguš v croatia
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Media, Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > International Law
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 01 Mar 2018 10:30
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 03:36
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/66401
DOI: 10.1093/hrlr/ngy014

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