The European consensus doctrine employed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been considered as unclear, imprecise and inconsistent. This is problematic in terms of the principles of transparency, clarity and legal certainty. This paper argues that the United States Supreme Court conceptualises consensus analysis in a more consistent manner in consulting ‘national consensus’ in its Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. It identifies the causes for differences between the two courts from which it draws lessons the ECtHR could learn. These causes are structural in nature and originate in innate organisational differences between the two courts. These differences include the number of applications brought before the courts, the number of cases in the docket, the number of sitting judges and their tenure, and the rules on the composition of judicial formations. The paper concludes that there are two non-mutually exclusive courses of action that could be taken to ensure that the European consensus doctrine becomes more clear and consistent. First, the structural shortcomings of the ECtHR could be rectified through structural change in the makeup of its judicial review. Second, change could be achieved organically, through case law, if the permanent members of the Grand Chamber afforded the issue more attention.