讲座主题：The Use of Scholarship by International Courts: Examples from the European Court of Human Rights

讲座人：Prof Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou

主持人：郭剑萍副教授

讲座地点：兴庆校区E910

讲座时间：3月17日10:00-11:30

Prof Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou is Professor in Human Rights Law and Associate Dean for Global Engagement of the School of Law and Social Justice. He joined University of Liverpool in 2015, having previously worked at the University of Surrey (UK), University College Dublin (Ireland) and Gomel State University (Belarus). Kanstantsin is an author of three books and over a hundred of academic articles, review pieces and comments. He published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Legal Studies, Human Rights Law Review, International and Comparative Law Review and many others. He cooperates with international inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations as an expert in international and European human rights law. His research interests spread between interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights, reform of the European Court of Human Rights, administration of international justice, comparative and constitutional law. Kanstantsin is a co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review. Kanstantsin is director of the International Law and Human Rights Unit.

Abstract: The relationship between scholarship and adjudication has attracted considerable attention in recent years, especially in those areas where significant academic expertise has been developed and academic scrutiny of decisions is common. Yet the role of scholars and scholarship in the context of the adjudicatory practices of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has remained palpably under-investigated. This presentation will explain the first large-scale empirical study of the use of scholarship by the ECtHR. It will rely on a purpose-built dataset comprising all the citations made by the Grand Chamber of the Court in judgments and separate opinions appended to it. The study finds that the Court’s majority uses scholarship for the purposes of reviewing facts and interpreting international and domestic law but does so rarely. The majority of the ECtHR does not use scholarship to interpret the European Convention on Human Rights or for persuasive purposes, unlike the individual Judges in their separate opinions. Indeed, individual Judges refer to scholarship more often, for more varied and arguably different purposes. This use, however, is inconsistent in terms of both frequency and the types of sources referred to.