Domestic judicial deference and the ECHR in the UK and Netherlands

This comparative article explores the interrelationship of domestic and international human rights law in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, with reference to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The two jurisdictions offer a valuable comparison, in that the UK’s dualist approach to international law has meant that it is only very recently that the ECHR has been directly enforceable in UK domestic law. The Netherlands, meanwhile, appears to the English lawyer to present a completely different approach to international law, being based as it is upon a form of monism. Whilst the two systems appear opposed in logic because of their dualist and monist bases, they in fact have much to learn from each other.