International law through the national prism: the impact of judicial dialogue (ECRP)

The principal objective of this project was to study the interaction between national courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with a view to assess whether they are in a state of competition on the relative importance of the European Convention on Human Rights and the respective national orders, or whether they interact in a constructive (constitutional) way. Subsidiary objectives were to analyse the interaction in three different national jurisdictions by examining how domestic courts engage with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the ECtHR's jurisprudence, and how the ECtHR reacts to this engagement. A related question in this context was how the ECtHR uses the decisions of domestic courts and the national laws that these courts interpret and apply to develop the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Project has resulted both in articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and a book chapter covering the interaction between courts from the selected national jurisdictions (Germany, Russia and Norway) and the ECtHR. Another result of the project is an edited volume with contributions that also cover domestic courts' judicial dialogue on human rights in regions other than Europe. This allows drawing comparative conclusions between the situation in Europe and other regions.