Rethinking Legal Limitations to Articles 8-11 of the European Convention on Human Rights Through Dworkin's Eyes

This thesis makes use of insights from Dworkin’s theory of law to analyse the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law on specific moral issues. By analysing the relevant case-law on the subject of public morals, this thesis aims to identify interpretive patterns in the Court’s reasoning in ‘hard cases’ (cases raising sensitive moral and ethical issues). Based on this analysis of the Court’s case-law on moral issues, the thesis aims to discuss whether the Court is interested in the moral values underlying human rights to determine the content of the Convention rights. Importantly, such values depend on substantive moral arguments rather than member states’ common interpretation of those values.
On this view, the content of the Convention rights depends on principles of political morality. This means that the content of the Convention rights can be interpreted without reference to the will of political majorities across the Council of Europe. This thesis thus aims to show that Dworkin’s legal interpretivism can help the European Court of Human Rights in providing substantive moral reasons concerning the purpose and moral value of the Convention rights. This thesis proposes that the European Court of Human Rights can benefit a better understanding of the moral values underlying the Convention rights. Therefore, this thesis aims to discuss how the Court could make use of insights from Dworkin’s legal interpretivism to establish the objective content of the Convention rights.