For any student of international human rights law or observer of the European Convention on Human Rights system, which revolves around the European Court of Human Rights, the dramatic increase in Council of Europe Member States (and thus in contracting states of the Convention) in the 1990s to include Central and Eastern European nations, and the resulting development of the Convention as a pan-European human rights instrument, were among the most fascinating phenomena of the post-Cold War era. It is beyond doubt, however, that one cannot rely too much on the existence of the Court alone—the potential individual applicants are now 800 million in forty-seven countries—and that it is essentially on the domestic plane in each state that the Convention norms must be adequately implemented. Now, with the Court dealing with a staggering number of cases, most of which concentrate on the newly admitted states, a critical inquiry into the extent to which the Convention has had real significance in these countries is felt to be timely and indispensable. The present volume, edited by Leonard Hammer and Frank Emmert, offers a comprehensive overview and in-depth analyses on the subject. What we are witnessing is indeed “a complex and civilizational process” far from being satisfactorily finished, and we can gain first-hand insights into prevailing problems, as well as measures to be taken for improvement by reading this book.

Based on a standardized questionnaire (annexed to the book), the book offers the results of country-by-country research by reporters for twenty new States Parties, followed by useful conclusions by one of the editors. The countries covered and the reporters are Albania (Eralda Met-Hasani Çani and Evis Alimehmeti), Armenia (Sarah Shirazyan), Azerbaijan (Javid Gadirov), Bulgaria (Martin Belov and Krassimir Kanev), Croatia (Siniša Rodin), the Czech Republic (Jiří Zemánek, Jiří Kmec, and Harald Christian Scheu), Estonia (René Värk and Carri Ginter), Georgia (Babusta Pataraia and Ekaterine Lomtatidze), Hungary (Petra Bárd), Kosovo (Remzije Istrefi), Latvia (Agris Repšs, Ivars Stankevičs, and Lāsma Rugāte), Lithuania (Renata Beržanskienė), Moldova (Vladislav Gribincea, Nadejda Hriptievschi, and Mariana Chicu), Poland (Piotr Korzec), Romania (Andreea Arghir and Alina M. Stănciulescu), Russia (Anton Burkov), Serbia (Dejan Pavlovic), Slovakia (Zuzana Kovaľová and Zuzana Vargová), Slovenia (Matej Avbelj and Jernej Letnar Černič), and Ukraine (Andrey Meleshevich and Anna Khvorostyankina). The reporters are all legal experts actively committed to research, teaching, and/or practice, and have produced detailed studies containing information that would not otherwise be readily available in English.

The findings summarized in the conclusions are, first, that in spite of constitutional reform after the fall of communism, relatively few legislative changes have been made, and the studies suggest that “the national guarantees—as applied by executive branches and as interpreted by the national courts—are either substantively inferior to the guarantees provided by the European system and/or fail to provide effective remedies on procedural grounds”. Throughout the region, the reporters “found a preference for the application of national human rights provisions, even if they are less clear and/or less beneficial”. “References to the case-law of the EuCrtHR were even rarer in the decisions of the national courts”, and “the higher the court in the national hierarchy, the less likely it seems to make explicit reference to the ECHR, let alone the case-law of the EuCrtHR”. These observations on the unwillingness of the judges to engage in international discourse were of particular interest to the reviewer, as they reminded her of a similar situation in Japan with regard to universal human rights standards (although Japan is worse because it has not accepted any mechanism of individual communications under human rights treaties). The editor suggests measures that could be taken by national supreme or constitutional courts as well as steps that should be taken to secure the implementation of the Convention and the case-law in the legislation of each state.

Second, as regards awareness of the Convention and its reception by the legal community, a major finding is that, while there is good knowledge of the Convention itself, things are different when it comes to functional knowledge, i.e. the ability to apply the norms in practice and the willingness to do so. Reasons for this include the fact that, in law schools, “the ECHR is often only taught in stand-alone courses”, and the European standards are “rarely incorporated (also) into courses on constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law and procedure, and all the other subjects that are regularly concerned with—or should at least be concerned with—the protection of human rights”. In this context, it is also emphasized that there is a need for the systematic training of government officials, particularly law enforcement officers, on human rights. Third, as regards the case-law of the Court and its impact on the national legal orders, data on pending cases and the findings of violations concerned primarily with fair and effective remedies are analyzed to “show a breakdown of the national judicial system” (emphasis added). The editor recalls that “[t]he national courts have to understand themselves as agents of the European Court”, so that they utilize the opportunity to fix problems before they are brought to Strasbourg.

The European Convention system is certainly faced with great challenges, given the alarming indication from the reports that, after almost twenty years, several states actually seem to be “sliding back” in terms of their human rights records. This valuable work will be an important point of reference for all those seriously concerned with the future of the system and human rights protection in Europe.