Abstract EN:

Integration through human rights is a phenomenon that is increasingly shaping the emergence of a political Europe. The highly contingent linkage between the European Court of justice and the European Court of human rights is at the root of this process by which multiple social institutions get related to each other and encompassed by a common set of evolving supranational norms. More than thirty years ago, the paths of European courts unexpectedly crossed when they were both impelled to figure out a way to deal with a twofold discontinuity in the European system of human rights protection. Human rights have changed the course of European integration, as they have progressively been superimposed on most eu and national activities by the two courts and helped to consolidate a supranational level of governance. The research investigates the underlying social mechanisms of inter-jurisdictional interactions. It explains why the European courts unexpectedly met and how the courts have been trying to solve Europe’s human rights puzzle by intruding into each other’s legal orders. It also deals with the diplomatic interactions between European judges and assesses the wider impact of the courts’ linkage on European integration. While the interdependence of the European States has increased as they relate to each other in a highly institutionalised system of supranational governance, new forms of solidarity have emerged as ways of life diversify in a transnationalised society (diversity through unity).