Working group Book Launch “Responding to Authoritarian Populism at the European Court of Human Rights” Add to calendar 2026-06-11 10:30 2026-06-11 12:00 Europe/Rome Book Launch Sala dei Cuoi Villa Salviati - Castle YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Jun 11 2026 10:30 - 12:00 CEST Sala dei Cuoi, Villa Salviati - Castle Organised by Department of Law The International Law WG and the Human and Fundamental Rights WG are hosting a book presentation featuring the author Alain Zysset. The book offers the first systematic account of the European Court of Human Rights' actual and potential response to the wave of authoritarian populism consolidating across Council of Europe states. It develops an original framework combining philosophical, social-scientific and legal analysis. The book first develops the claim that authoritarian populism is characterised by a severe distortion of democracy and a corrupt rule of law. Drawing on these insights, the book points to the infrastructural erosion of Convention rights, highlighting the limits of the Court's 'democratic society' in the media, judicial, and electoral domains. Taking into account the Court's subsidiary position, the book demonstrates how the Court's proportionality test can and should be enhanced to better detect and respond to infrastructural erosion across these areas. Register