Literary references in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

The article discusses the practice of invoking literary works in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The quantitative analysis of the case law allowed for the formulation of some conclusions. Firstly, literary references appear exclusively in dissents and concurrences, not in the Court’s judgments themselves. Secondly, the phenomenon of citing fiction in the ECtHR’s case law is neither common nor marginal. Thirdly, in the last two decades there has been a marked intensification in the use of literary references by the Court’s judges. Fourthly, the willingness to cite works of fiction in the dissent or concurrence is essentially independent of the judge’s nationality, sex or country of origin. Fifthly, literature is one of many extra-legal sources quoted in the ECtHR’s case law, among those such as philosophy, movies or music.