European Consensus and the Legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights

'Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou's book presents the first comprehensive treatise of consensus as used by the European Court of Human Rights ... Dzehtsiarou deserves praise for this book. It discusses comprehensively a question hitherto often overlooked and opens up novel insights into 'all things consensus'. The combination of socio-legal method with the doctrinal method work[s] exceptionally well and should encourage future research along these lines.' Tobias Lock, Human Rights Law Review

'The book is thoroughly researched, it presents its core ideas with lucidity and, most importantly, it takes a very clear stance in favour of a rather controversial method of interpretation, used as it is in the highly sensitive and politicized area of human rights law in Europe ... In short, this book is a major achievement in the study of this important subject.' Vassilis Tzevelekos and Panos Kapotas, Common Market Law Review

'Dzehtsiarou's analysis of The Court's use of a European consensus argument to generate legitimacy is well-balanced in terms of presenting both supporting and dissenting arguments. He confronts anti-majoritarians head on, arguing for example that the normative grounding of the European consensus idea in majoritarian logic has not prevented The Court from deploting it in defense of a wide range of minority groups - religious, ethnic, and linguistic.' Stephen C. Ropp, Human Rights Review

Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Surrey and a visiting professor at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania.

1. Introduction; 2. The concept of European consensus; 3. Types of consensus; 4. Behind the scenes: comparative analysis within the Court; 5. Criticism of European consensus; 6. Legitimacy of the Court and legitimacy of its judgments; 7. European consensus: perceptions of the ECtHR judges; 8. Conclusion.