Along with the flourishing of international and regional courts worldwide, transnational legal (and quasi-legal) institutions are also increasing. These can be described as groups, conferences, commissions of legal experts, judges and academics established at transnational level or in the context of international organizations. Their activities can be summarized as exchange of ideas and practices, production of recommendations, opinions and documents (soft-law) concerning different fields of law or policy sectors.
Among these transnational legal institutions, the Council of Europe Venice Commission is increasingly drawing the attention of the international public opinion and academic community. The Venice Commission is, in fact, becoming a sort of international leading actor in providing model of constitutional justice, “democratic” courts and judicial systems based on the European fundamental values and rights. In this domain, it could be also defined as a recognized “source of European normative power” in setting common minimum standards for the functioning of constitutional courts and judicial systems.
The paper, drawn from an individual research project founded with a EUI Jean Monnet fellowship, will focuses on the role of the CoE Venice Commission as transnational legal institution, underlining in particular the links between the Venice Commission and the ECHR, as the Strasbourg court is increasingly using the Opinion of the Venice Commission as Relevant Sources for the judgment. The increasing formal and informal contacts and collaborations between the Venice Commission and the EU institutions will be analyzed as well.
