Marc Bossuyt's short book on international human rights protection is wideranging, covering both the United Nations system and the various existing regional systems, as well as the contribution made at national level by the domestic courts. Thus, a significant part of the book is devoted to examining the enforcement machinery set up under the European Convention on Human Rights, concentrating notably on the judicial activity of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is the driving force at the heart of that machinery.

There is an all too common intolerance in European human rights circles of anyone who dares to break ranks by questioning or, even worse, criticising the rulings or approach of the Strasbourg Court. Such persons are regarded almost as renegades or traitors; they are not true human rights “patriots”. Sad to say, self-questioning and openness to criticism are generally lacking as qualities in many leading lights of the European human rights movement.

In his book, as in his writings throughout his distinguished career, Marc Bossuyt provides a refreshing breath of fresh air. In looking not only at the remarkable, ground-breaking achievements of the Strasbourg Court but also at its possible errors, he has not been afraid to break the taboo of human rights “patriotism”.

The protection of human rights, Marc Bossuyt writes, brings us to the crossroads of law and politics. To the crossroads of law and morals, one might also add. It is no easy matter to draw the line between letting democracy work at local level in the many and diverse societies of a Convention community of 800 million people and imposing, in the cause of human rights, an ever growing and ever-detailed corpus of Europe-wide rules elaborated by the judicial interpretation of a small group of judges in Strasbourg. Marc Bossuyt fears that on occasions, in its enthusiasm to be “the Conscience of Europe” and to continually spread wider and yet wider the net of human rights protection, the Strasbourg Court has strayed outside its treaty-given international, judicial role under the Convention. The result being over-intervention into the normal workings of democratic processes at national level and over-expansion of the Convention rights and freedoms into domains not covered by the text of the treaty.