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The European Court of Human Rights, Amicus Curiae, and Violence against Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Rachel A. Cichowski
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Abstract

Are international courts and advocacy group legal mobilization shaping human rights politics? This question poses a theoretical and empirical challenge to state dominated understandings of international litigation. This article theorizes the interaction between advocacy groups and the European Court of Human Rights and the role this participation plays in the enforcement and development of human rights. The analyses examine institutional factors shaping broad trends in mobilization complemented by two in depth studies examining a single mode of participation, amicus curiae and a single area of law, violence against women. The data identify the critical role standing rules, court review powers and group expertise play in transnational rights mobilization and development. The findings bring into question dominant understandings of international law and contribute to a more complex understanding of law in a global age where international courts and societal actors are shaping the direction of rights protection.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 890 - 919
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author is grateful to the National Science Foundation, grant no. SES 1322161 for support of this research and to Elizabeth Chrun for her impeccable research assistance. The author would also like to thank David Victor and Emilie Hafner-Burton, Directors of the UCSD School of Global Policy & Strategy, Laboratory on International Law and Regulation, where the author resided on sabbatical leave while writing this article. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Law & Society Association 2015 Annual Meeting, Data and International Courts Workshop, PluriCourts, Oslo, Norway, June 2015 and the Southern California International Law Scholars Workshop, UC Irvine School of Law, February 2016. I appreciated comments from workshop and conference participants especially Erik Voeten, Wayne Sandholtz, and Greg Shaffer as well as thoughtful suggestions from the anonymous reviewers.

References

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