Definition
Margin of appreciation (international human rights law) [Fr.: marge d' appréciation, Gr.: περιθώριο εκτίμησης] (See also: freedom of expression, subsidiarity, judicial scrutiny, pressing social need, public morals, public interest, restriction, proportionality) = a doctrine established by the European Court of Human Rights, according to which a member state is allowed a certain measure of discretion in determining whether a pressing social need for the restriction of a fundamental right exists in the given national context. This margin is given both to the domestic legislator and the authorities that are called to interpret and apply the relevant laws, who are in a better position than the international judge to assess what measures should be adopted.
However, state parties to the Convention are not granted an unlimited power of appreciation as the ECtHR is authorised to review all state actions and decide whether they conform with the purpose of the governing norm.
Useful links
Case Law
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=001-57499&filename=001-57499.pdf&TID=erlfalnvcx - Case of Handyside v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 5393/72, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 7 December 1976 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57506 - Case of Ireland v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 5310/71, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 3 December 1977 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57534 - Case of Marckx v. Belgium, Application No. 6833/74, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 13 June 1979 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57789 - Case of Open Door and Dublin Well Woman v. Ireland, Application No. 14234/88, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 29 October 1992 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57897 - Case of Otto Preminger Institute v. Austria, Application No. 13470/87, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 20 September 1994 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-61207 - Case of Murphy v. Ireland, Application No. 44179/98, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 10 July 2003 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-99605 - Case of Schalk & Kopf v Austria, Application No. 30141/04, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 24 June 2010 [English]
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-119244 - Case of Animal Defenders International v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 48876/08, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, Judgement of 22 April 2013 [English]
Organisations and Associations
http://www.coe.int/en/ - Council of Europe
https://www.hrw.org/ - Human Rights Watch
Online Publications
http://www.pict-pcti.org/publications/PICT_articles/JILP/Benvenisti.pdf - Benvenisti E., 1998, Margin of Appreciation Consensus, and Universal Standards, NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, Vol. 31:843 [English]
http://www.echr.coe.int/LibraryDocs/DG2/HRFILES/DG2-EN-HRFILES-17(2000).pdf - S Greer, 2000, The Margin of Appreciation: Interpretation and Discretion under the European Convention on Human Rights, Council of Europe Human Rights File No 17 [English]
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/human-rights/research/ucl-hrr/docs/hrreviewissue3/greer - Greer S., 2010, The Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights: Universal Principle or Margin of Apreciation?, UCL Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 3 [English]
http://www.diva-portal.se/smash/get/diva2:661681/FULLTEXT01.pdf - Holmer O., 2013, Decoding the Margin f Appreciation Doctrine in its use by the European Court of Human Rights, University of Stockholm Student Thesis [English]
http://ikee.lib.auth.gr/record/66179/files/gri-2007-1032.pdf - Pinakidis G., 2006, The "democratic society" clause in the European Convention on Human Rights, PhD Thesis [Greek]
http://hrlr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/10/22/hrlr.ngv027.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=cGnhnKC5hxGr4gP - Saul M., 2015, The European Court of Human Rights' Margin of Appreciation and the Processes of National Parliaments, Human Rights Law Review [English]
http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/16/5/330.pdf - Shany Y., 2006, Toward a General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?, The European Journal of International Law Vol. 16 No. 5 [English]
http://projects.essex.ac.uk/ehrr/V8N1/Smith.pdf - Smith R., The Margin of Appreciation and Human Rights Protection in the 'War on Terror': Have the Rules Changed before the European Court of Human Rights?, Essex Human Rights Review Vol. 8 No. 1 [English]
http://ikee.lib.auth.gr/record/134330/files/GRI-2014-12355.pdf - Tsioulkas E., 2013, The margin of appreciation in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, Post Graduate Thesis [Greek]
http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/64/1545/16910.pdf - Tumay M., 2008, The "Margin of Appreciation Doctrine" developed by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, Ankara Law Review, Vol. 5 No. 2 [English]
Publications
Arai-Takahashi Y., The margin of appreciation doctrine: a theoretical analysis of Strasbourg's variable geometry in Føllesdal A., Peters B., Ulfstein G., 2013, Constituting Europe: The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press [English]
Clapham A., 2007, Human rights: A very short introduction, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press [English]
Drooghenbroeck S., 2001, La proportionnalite dans le droit de la convention europeenne des droits de l'homme: Prendre l'idee simple au serieux, Bruxelles, Bruylant [French]
Joseph S., Castan M., 2013, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Cases, materials, and commentary, Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford University Press [English]
Marks S., Clapham A, 2005, International human rights lexicon, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press [English]
Yourow H. C., 1996, The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in the Dynamics of European Human Rights Jurisprudence, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers [English[