Professor Kai Möller

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Conflict Studies, MSc in European and International Politics and Policy, MSc in European and International Politics and Policy (LSE and Bocconi), MSc in European and International Politics and Policy (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Bocconi), MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in Human Rights and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

The course will offer a theoretically informed introduction to the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. It will focus on both the doctrinal framework that the European Court of Human Rights has developed – in particular: proportionality, the margin of appreciation, negative and positive obligations, the living instrument doctrine, and the emerging consensus doctrine – and the substantive questions of what the values underlying human rights are and what these values require in specific contexts. With regard to the latter, more philosophical, aspect, we will pay special attention to the idea of human dignity, exploring in some depth the Court’s view that respect for human dignity [and human freedom] is the ‘very essence’ of the Convention.

Topics include: An introduction to the European Convention. Basic concepts of European Convention law: proportionality, the margin of appreciation, living instrument, emerging consensus. Human dignity - ‘the very essence’ of the Convention? Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the role of religious arguments in human rights law. The right to freedom of expression and the protection of offensive expression. Militant democracy and democratic backsliding in Europe. The right to private life and the enforcement of morality. The right to freedom of religion and religious pluralism in Europe.

There will be 20 hours of teaching in Autumn Term and two hours in Summer Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

There will be a formative assessment; its format will be confirmed at the start of the course.

There is no single text covering the course and required readings will be uploaded to Moodle before the seminars.

The readings will consist of a mixture of cases and theoretical materials. The following are useful textbooks:

• Jacobs, White and Ovey, The European Convention on Human Rights, 8th edn (OUP 2020) 

• Harris, O'Boyle and Warbrick, Law of the European Convention on Human Rights, 5th edn (OUP 2023).

A strong European perspective is to be found in:

• van Dijk, van Hoof, van Rijn and Zwaak (eds), Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights 5th edn (Intersentia, 2018)

Very good edited books include:

• Brems and Gerards (eds), Shaping Rights in the ECHR (CUP 2013)

• Follesdal, Peters and Ulfstein (eds), Constituting Europe (CUP 2013)

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.