The Application of the Democratic Dialogue Model to the Relationship between Domestic Legislatures and International Courts

This thesis argues that the democratic dialogue model, a domestic constitutional model of rights protection, can, and does, provide both an explanatory and a normative framework for the relationship between domestic legislatures and international courts. The thesis hypothesises that, at a descriptive level, domestic legislatures and international courts engage in democratic dialogue because each time an international court decides on a rights issue, domestic legislatures can respond in such a way as to respect the international court’s decision, while nonetheless achieving their own legislative and policy goals. From a normative perspective, the thesis also hypothesises that dialogic interaction between domestic legislatures and international courts should: (i) produce a better protection of rights, that is, ‘better’ in the sense of providing a protection of rights which draws on arguments for both political and legal constitutionalism; (ii) facilitate a more diverse deliberation about rights; and (iii) produce a system of checks and balances between the institutions. With a focus on the interactions between the Parliament of the United Kingdom and, respectively, the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union and using the (contestable) right of non-nationals to enter and remain in a country as its key case study, the thesis ultimately demonstrates these hypotheses to be correct. This finding, it is argued, is particularly useful to build the legitimacy, and perceived legitimacy, of the international human rights law system, because it goes some way to addressing an ongoing objection, based on an alleged ‘democratic deficit’, to the adjudication of rights by international courts.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Gillis, Matilda

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Young, Alison
• Sanger, Andrew

• democratic dialogue
• domestic legislatures
• human rights
• immigration
• international courts

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0003-4667-066X

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/347838