On 9-10 October 2009, a two-day workshop entitled “Rights, legal mobilization and political participation in Europe” was organized and convened by ELIAMEP in Athens. It was funded by the European Science Foundation as part of the ESF exploratory workshop series. Twenty two participants were involved in the workshop. Sixteen participants came from 10 different countries (besides Greece) such as Turkey, the UK, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Estonia, the Netherlands and the USA.
From an interdisciplinary perspective that cuts across the fields of law, politics and sociology, the workshop explored the mobilization of rights on behalf of less privileged social actors and civil society through legal and judicial processes in pursuit of collective and public interest goals in Europe. There has been very little research in European comparative legal and political analysis of whether and the extent to which citizens actually pursue their interests and seek to influence political processes through the legal and judicial system. This is a glaring gap given ample evidence about a growing trend of public interest litigation across Europe, accompanied by social mobilization by NGOs and more recently supported by a variety of equality bodies. Yet, we still have very little systematic knowledge about this flourishing activity, as well as of its consequences for political participation and electoral democracy in European polities.
The papers presented at the workshop covered three areas of public interest litigation, which were selected for study: gender equality, the rights of immigrants, and the rights of historical minorities and minority nations. These are areas that have attracted growing levels of litigation that has been significantly propelled by mobilization among civil society actors, NGOs but also independent state agencies such as equality bodies and national human rights institutions. Some of the questions that the paper presentations addressed were the following : To what extent do citizens activate legal processes and judicial institutions to claim rights that emanate from national and European (EC and human rights) law, and why? What kinds of rights claims do they raise, and which specific policies, laws and practices have come under judicial scrutiny in different countries? Which legal-judicial, as well as social and political factors appear to shape variation in the degree and patterns of legal mobilization and public interest litigation across countries? To what extent does legal mobilization through courts mount a noticeable challenge and effectively pressure government politics and decision-making? Has legal mobilization around rights claims grown over time and can it be seen as a growing form of political participation in European democracies?

See the programme of the Workshop

Convenor on behalf of ELIAMEP: Dr. Dia Anagnostou ([email protected])