Justice in the Balance: Democracy, Rule of Law, and the European Court of Human Rights -- Jessica Greenberg, Hardcover

Established as a post-World War II response to conflict and fascism, the European Court of Human Rights is routinely characterized as the most successful human rights institution in the world. Based in Strasbourg, France, its jurisdiction extends to over 700 million people on European soil across the 46 Council of Europe member countries. The Court is the crown jewel of the Council, an international organization dedicated to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. And yet, for years, European institutions have been haunted by the specter of failure. In the shadow of rising populism, inequality, and war, faith in democracy and the rule of law has been shaken to its core. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted over eight years with human rights advocates, lawyers, and judges at the European Court of Human Rights, this book asks: What kind of justice is possible through law?

Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research, Jessica Greenberg tracks two paradoxical experiences of the European human rights system and the Court: on the one hand, the Court as a bureaucratic "machine;" on the other, the Court as the "conscience of Europe." She argues that human rights frameworks fuel imaginative approaches to social change, and compel legal actors to creatively navigate institutions through advocacy, persuasion, and innovative interpretation of what the law is and what it should be.

Author: Jessica Greenberg
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 09/23/2025
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9781503643413

About the Author
Jessica Greenberg is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Postsocialist Serbia (Stanford, 2014).