Shaping New Families: Same Sex Couples' Rights in the Dialogue between the Courts

Over the last two decades, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has come to play a major role in a large number of private law issues. The aim of this book is to provide a broader view of the impact of the ECHR on national private law. To that end, it begins with a comparative analysis of the interaction between the ECHR and Contracting States’ domestic laws. The chapters forming the main part of the book explore, also from a comparative perspective, the influence of the ECHR on a wide range of fields of private law, including family law, data protection law, media law, copyright law, labour law as well as private international law and procedural law. The analysis of cases reveals many common features, but likewise some inconsistencies, in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The final part of the book focuses on a number of overarching issues, in particular the role of comparative law in the reasoning of the ECtHR and the contribution of the ECHR to European harmonisation of private law. What becomes apparent from the various contributions is that the ECHR and the case-law of the ECtHR are becoming important elements of a common European private law.