The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine and the Principle of Proportionality in the Jurisprudence of the ECHR
Description:... This book analyses the case-law of the European Convention on Human Rights with particular reference to the margin of appreciation doctrine and the principle of proportionality. While the margin of appreciation has been closely associated with the notion of judicial restraint, the principle of proportionality is an interpretive device designed to restrain the power of State authorities and to provide greater protection of individual autonomy. By analysing the disparate fields in which Convention rights are raised, this book seeks to identify various policy grounds affecting the scope of margin and the standard of review. The survey reveals that there exists complex interplay of numerous judicial policies pursued by the European Court and Commission of Human Rights, belying a perceived dichotomy between judicial self-restraint and judicial activism. The examination of the case-law is followed by a disaggregating analysis of the margin of appreciation, an attempt that aims to elucidate criteria and rationales for the doctrine's application, assisting readers better to grasp its nature. Fully incorporating the cases decided since the entry into force of the Eleventh Protocol, this book will be of interest to all academics, students and practitioners of European human rights law and international human rights law in general. The preface is written by James Crawford, Whewell Professor of International Law and the Director of the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. Yutaka Arai-Takahashi is a lecturer in international law and international human rights law at University of Kent at Canterbury and a visiting professor at Università degli Studi di Trento in Italy. He studied law at Keio University in Tokyo and became one of the first students in Japan to get accepted to a graduate school without having to pass the fourth year of undergraduate studies. He also studied international relations at Brown University in the United States as a visiting student. After he obtained LL.M. at Keio, he went on to study at University of Cambridge, obtaining LL.M. (1994) and PhD (1998). Upon the completion of his doctoral research, he worked as a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht in Heidelberg.
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