Journal Article

THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A Living Instruments as Applied to Homosexuality

Byron, Christine

2016

Overview

The current method of interpretation of the ECHR has its roots in the court's decision in Golder v. United Kingdom, a decision that, ironically, is one of the few in which the court made reference to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.4 Despite the fact that the Vienna Convention was not in force at the time of the decision, the court accepted that articles 31-33 of the Convention (on treaty interpretation) were \"generally accepted principles\" of international law.5 The court carried out its reasoning in the case, based purely on the \"object and purpose\" of the ECHR as a whole, notably not referring to the interpretation of the text that had been intended by the drafters at the time of the adoption of the ECHR.'5 If the ECtHR had taken that approach, it would have had the effect of freezing the interpretation of the human rights of the ECHR at the standard understood in the early 1950s.

• Publisher: American Bar Association
• Subject: Councils / Court decisions / Human rights / International courts / Treaties