Justice in the Balance

And yet, for years, European institutions have been haunted by the specter of failure. In the shadow of rising populism, inequality, and war, faith in democracy and the rule of law has been shaken to its core. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted over eight years with human rights advocates, lawyers, and judges at the European Court of Human Rights, this book asks: what kind of justice is possible through law? Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research, Jessica Greenberg tracks two paradoxical experiences of the European human rights system and the Court: on the one hand the Court as a bureaucratic "machine;" on the other the Court as the "conscience of Europe." She argues that human rights frameworks fuel imaginative approaches to social change, and compel legal actors to creatively navigate institutions through advocacy, persuasion, and innovative interpretation of what the law is and what it should be.