Long before ‘dialogue’ became a buzzword for the Convention system, it was already being employed by academics researching other legal systems to describe interaction between, such as domestic courts from different states. Others have relied on the notion to construct a normative framework to regulate exchanges between courts. Indeed, the notion of dialogue crops up with increasing frequency in discussions of relationship between the judges of the European Court of Human Rights (Court) and the states parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention). The notion can, however, also be usefully applied in research into, for example, the relationship between the Court and the Committee of Ministers (Committee).

This study examines dialogue in the Convention system between the Court, the states parties, the Committee, the Parliamentary Assembly (Assembly) and the Commissioner for Human Rights (Commissioner). More specifically, the normative question covers the reasons why dialogue should take place, with descriptions of whether and to what extent a procedural dialogue indeed does take place for the reasons given. Thus, the common sense realisation that dialogue can add value to the Convention system, which can be found in many references to dialogue, is dissected. This is done by developing a concept of dialogue that can serve as a normative framework for interaction in the Convention system. The research, although it focuses on the relationship between the Court and the states, also takes account of these other Council of Europe interlocutors: the Committee, the Assembly and the Commissioner.

To avoid repetition, the reader is referred for a further summary to the main findings of this research, presented in section 1 of chapter XIII (Conclusions and Recommendations). This section can be read as a summary of the entire volume.