Margin of Appreciation

The margin of appreciation is a doctrine of international human rights law, developed by the European Court of Human Rights, that gives a member state some latitude in how it implements the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, recognizing that national authorities may be better placed than an international court to judge the needs of their own society. The doctrine emerged from the jurisprudence of the Court beginning in 1956 in a case concerning martial law, and it took clearer shape in later cases such as Lawless v Ireland in 1961 and especially Handyside v United Kingdom in 1976, where the Court held that it retains the final say over whether a restriction by a state on a right is compatible with the Convention even while allowing the state some discretion. Courts assess how wide the margin should be by looking at the nature of the right at stake, the aim of the measure being challenged, and whether a consensus exists among the states that have signed the Convention, giving states a wider margin where no such consensus exists or where a state must balance competing social interests, and a narrower margin where a fundamental right or a clearly private interest is directly at stake.