God’s Lawyers?: The Religious Right at the European Court of Human Rights

International human rights courts appear to be Manichean insitutions: whereas progressive actors treat these courts as welcome venues for expanding human rights protections, their conservative counterparts see courts as irredeemably biased. The latter perception has resulted in a backlash against international human rights law. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) embodies this trend. Existing scholarship documents how rulings in Strasbourg have protected LGBTI rights and gender equality. State-based and civil-society actors with socially conservative views have consequently denounced and sought to undermine the Court. However, this black-and-white description of the Strasbourg court — one in which progressive actors align with the ECtHR while conservatives resist it — is too simplistic. It overlooks the increase in litigation by organizations of the Religious Right. Why would organizations operate within an institution that is hostile to their interests? This article draws on the literature on legal mobilization to explain this paradox. It argues that the Religious Right has turned to the ECtHR precisely because the court threatens its interests. Conservative litigation is thus a reactionary development intended to stem the tide of liberal jurisprudence. To support this argument, the paper analyzes the activities of two prominent legal advocacy organizations that are active in Strasbourg: the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) and ADF International. I draw on a plethora of sources — including official research reports, press releases, amicus briefs and news articles — to capture how these organizations position themselves vis-à-vis the ECtHR. I conclude that their litigation should be seen as a reactionary attempt to rearrange the legal opportunity structure of the Strasbourg court.