The Margin of Appreciation, Subsidiarity, and Global Challenges to Democracy

GlobalTrust Working Paper Series 05/2016

17 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2017

See all articles by Eyal Benvenisti

Eyal Benvenisti

University of Cambridge - Lauterpacht Centre for International Law

Date Written: November 9, 2016

Abstract

Much of the academic debate concerning the function of the Margin of Appreciation (MoA) doctrine is based on the assumption that democracy works more or less well and therefore any impugned domestic policy merits respect. The role of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) should therefore be secondary, confined to the rare situations when the democratic process fails and the national courts refrain from rescuing it. This debate assumes that the causes of democratic failures are internal, or that domestic decision-making processes are sufficiently resilient to outside pressure. This is obviously wrong, and more so today than in any other time in the history of the modern state. The aim of this paper is to explore these external challenges to democracy and their implications to the role of the ECtHR in protecting human rights. These responses demonstrate the limits of the MoA doctrine and highlight its alternative, subsidiarity, as a superior doctrine to manage the interface between the domestic and the European components of the European human rights regime.

Suggested Citation

Benvenisti, Eyal, The Margin of Appreciation, Subsidiarity, and Global Challenges to Democracy (November 9, 2016). GlobalTrust Working Paper Series 05/2016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3047237 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3047237

Eyal Benvenisti (Contact Author)

University of Cambridge - Lauterpacht Centre for International Law ( email )

10 West Road
Cambridge, CB3 9DZ
United Kingdom

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