Provides broad and deep insight in the core concepts and principles of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Janneke Gerards is professor of fundamental rights law at Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands, and director of the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice. She has published widely in the field of European and national fundamental rights, constitutional law and judicial argumentation, and she teaches in various university and professional training courses on European fundamental rights. Janneke Gerards is also a deputy Judge in the Appeals Court of The Hague, a member of the Human Rights Commission of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs, and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1. Basics of the Convention system; 2. The Court's overall argumentative approach: mediating between the abstract and the concrete; 3. Principles governing the interpretation and application of Convention rights; 4. Methods of Convention interpretation; 5. Positive and negative obligations; 6. Vertical and horizontal effect; 7. The margin of appreciation doctrine; 8. Justification of restrictions I: lawfulness; 9. Justification of restrictions II: legitimate aim; 10. Justification of restrictions III: necessity, proportionality and fair balance; Index.