urn_isbn_978-952-61-1770-6

has built up a role as the most workable international human rights court, butthis success story is in crisis: the functionality, credibility and legitimacy of theConvention system will be measured in forthcoming years and the ECtHR itselfholds the keys to maintaining its position (or make it worse). 13National authorities and constitutional courts have traditionally compliedwith the ECtHR’s judgments almost without reservation. In more recent times,however, execution has become more frequently delayed or faulty. This is partlydue to legal, political and budgetary difficulties in some Contracting States.However, lack of compliance is also increasingly based on grounds of principle;that is, on a rejection of the superiority and binding character of the ECtHR’s interpretationsof the Convention. This has occurred in several Contracting States,including Finland 14 , Germany 15 , the United Kingdom 16 , Russia 17 and Italy 18 . Hence,there are signs that not all of the ECtHR’s interpretations are accepted and thatthe supremacy of supranational law over national law is not unreservedly recognised.Indeed, it is increasingly accepted by constitutional lawyers that there isno single institution that can really claim to have the final word on the interpretationand application of supranational law. Consequently, the ECtHR needs to dosomething to secure states’ compliance. 19 In this respect, I argue that it must payattention to the argumentative and interpretative methods used in its judgmentsin order to ensure that states will comply with them.Study of the ECtHR is obviously crucial for the 47 Council of Europe MemberStates, 20 as well as being of considerable relevance for individuals and legal practitionersin other countries. International human rights courts are a rare phenomenon,and the ECtHR is probably the best functioning example – or, at the veryleast, the most experienced one. 21Research questionsJudicial legitimacy is at the core of all four articles of this study. The underlyingquestions are: (1) what is the ECtHR’s judicial legitimacy based on?; and (2) how canits judicial legitimacy be accomplished? The question of its legitimacy is examinedparticularly in the context of the ECtHR’s constantly expanding interpretationsof Convention provisions, using the starting-point that it either gains or loses itsjudicial legitimacy through the reasoning used in its judgments. Furthermore,all four articles tackle certain aspects of the ECtHR’s legitimacy, although I do13The Contracting States, of course, impact on the ECtHR’s legitimacy by amending the Conventionor adding new Protocols.14See the judgment of the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court KHO 2012:75.15See e.g. Papier 2006, at 2.16See e.g. Hale 2012, Hillebrecht 2013, at 98–112.17See e.g. Hillebrecht 2013, at 114–121.18See e.g. ibid., at 121–125.19Gerards 2013, at 73–77.20There will be 48 Contracting Parties after the European Union accedes to the Convention.21The ECtHR has been described in the literature as the most effective supervisory machine for humanrights in Europe, see Steiner – Alston 2000, at 801, 807; Helfer – Slaughter 1997, at 296; Helfer 2008, at125.15