Rights and Courts in Pursuit of Social Change

Over the past few decades, European countries have witnessed a proliferation of legal norms concerning marginalised individuals and minorities who increasingly invoke them in front of courts to assert their rights and claim protection. The present volume explores the relationship between law, rights and social mobilisation in Europe. It specifically enquires into the extent and ways in which legal processes and entitlements are mobilised by less privileged social actors to advance their rights claims and pursue social change. Most distinctly, it explores such processes in the context of the multi-level European system, characterised by the existence of multiple legal and judicial arenas at the national, subnational and supranational/transnational level. In such a complex system of law and governance in Europe, concepts like legal opportunity structures, as well as the factors shaping them need to be reconceptualised. How does the multi-level European context distinctly shape the nature and salience of rights, as well as their mobilisation by individuals and minority actors?

1. Law and Rights' Claiming on behalf of Minorities in the Multi-level European System
Dia Anagnostou

Part I: Law, Rights and the Politics of Minorities in National Context

2. Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe: Expansion of Rights Without (Much) Litigation?
Bruno de Witte

3. Legal Mobilisation at the Subnational Level: The Case of Language Rights in the Spanish Autonomous
Community of Navarre
Xabier Arzoz

4. Rights on the Left? Social Movements, Law and Lawyers after 1968 in France
Liora Israël

Part II: European Courts as Arenas for Legal Mobilisation

5. A Tool-box for Legal and Political Mobilisation in European Equality Law
Mark Dawson, Elise Muir and Monica Claes

6. European Courts and the Rights of Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Greece
Evangelia Psychogiopoulou

Part III: The Role of NGOs and Transnational Human Rights Networks

7. From Belfast to Diyarbakir and Grozny via Strasbourg: Transnational Legal Mobilisation Against State Violations
in Contexts of Armed Conflict
Dia Anagnostou

8. Activists and Lawyers in the ECtHR: The Struggle for Gay Rights
Loveday Hodson

9. Law and Rights as Opportunity and Promise for Minorities in Europe? Concluding Observations and Research Agendas
Dia Anagnostou

“...anyone interested in (human) rights, courts and politics will probably find stimulating thoughts to take away from this very fascinating book.” –  Mathias Möschel, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 21.3

“Anagnostou's enthralling style and her ability to produce precise definitions make it easy to pay attention.” –  Marion Guerrero, European Journal of Legal Studies

“The strength of this book is an appreciation of the multiplicity of approaches and strategies among parties.” –  David Schultz, The Law and Politics Book Review

“...this volume will be valuable to anyone seeking to relate the generalities of the rule of law to a more detailed appreciation of the manner in which the rule of law shapes political potentialities.” –  Christopher May, Political Studies Review