The European Convention on Human Rights in the Italian System: from a Right Approach to a Strategic Litigation

The article analyzes the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights and of its Court’s judgments in Italy, ranging from a legal perspective to a political and social one. In fact, after decades of scarce cultural impact of the ECHR and its jurisprudence, in the last few years the Italian system passed from an individual right approach to a strategic implementation of the Convention. In the first part, the article resumes the systematically stronger role of the ECHR in Italy from the legal and institutional point of view. In the second one, it examines the case-law against Italy and some classes of judgments (prohibition of torture and mass expulsion, immunity of parliamentarians, freedom of religion, ill-treatment by law enforcement officers) where it is possible to find an increase in the use of the ECHR as a legal instrument for political and cultural challenges