International courts have always had to face criticism and resistance. In recent years, however, they have been under immense pressure, as their legitimacy and legal authority have continuously been challenged by a range of national actors, including states (i.e. mostly judiciary and executive bodies), civil society, academics and even legal professionals. The increasing tendency of these domestic actors to oppose judgments of international courts has led to the ‘accumulation of international law-averted national court decisions’ (p. 5).

The book under review, Principled Resistance to ECtHR Judgments – A New Paradigm?, tries to answer the overall question of whether such developments are just coincidental, isolated incidents, or whether they share enough similarities to establish a new paradigm. As the title suggests, the focus of the book is mainly on national courts’ objections to implementing European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments. However, the book ofter observes this phenomenon in a global context, that is, beyond the European borders, looking at a host of international courts which have also had to contend with severe resistance.

Edited by Dr. Marten Breuer, Professor of Public, European and International Law at the University of Konstanz, the book comprises 11 contributions – most of which are selected papers presented at a two-day conference held at the University of Konstanz in June 2017. The contributions are grouped into three thematic units. In the first section, the emphasis is on introducing the theoretical conceptualisation of the ‘principled resistance’. The first chapter outlines the contours of principled resistance – a term that is not well established or fixed in international law – and examines the ‘dogmatic international law framework that allows such developments to take place’ (p. 5). Building on the theoretical groundwork of the notion of ‘principle resistance’, the second chapter focuses on a ‘conceptual discussion and empirical examination of historically distinct instances of principled resistance’ (p. 37). Thus, this sociological conceptualisation of the term ‘principled resistance’ complements the definitional framework developed by the editor himself.

The second and central part of the book diverges from the theoretical and abstract conceptualisations presented in the first two chapters and undertakes a praxis-oriented assessment and analytical evaluation of different instances of national courts’ resistance to ECtHR judgments.