The Role of Precedent of the European Court of Human Rights in Dynamic Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties

Providing the legal systems with stability and dynamism requires the existence of stable rules and at the same time with a necessary degree of flexibility to ensure that the legal system would be practical and effective if important and real changes occur in social situations. International judicial authorities, in the course of litigation, identify the basis and reality of the rules and legal principle through interpretation and adaptation with the subject matter of the cases, and in this way, meet the needs arising from developments in the international situation. The European Court of Human Rights, whose main function is to resolve disputes arising from the European Convention on Human Rights, in some cases, through the use of a static interpretation, against dynamic interpretations, has insisted on the provisions of the Convention and, in some cases, having due regard to the structure of the European community, used the evolutionary and dynamic interpretation of the provisions of the Convention. The Court, in many cases, referred to a concept called “the European Consensus” to justify implementing the dynamic interpretation of the Convention and responded to the new situations. This approach has been faced with various agreements and disagreements.
The European Court of Human Rights by applying the dynamic interpretation method takes into account the will of States as a key element in the evolution of rules and obligations in international law and at the same time has undermined the need for expressing State’s will to accept these developments. In this way, the human rights rules and obligations enshrined in the Convention are evolving with changes in the requirements of the present time and social realities.