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199 D. Anagnostou Book Reviews 199 D. Anagnostou (ed.) Rights and Courts in Pursuit of Social Change: Legal Mobilisation in the Multi-Level European System, Oñati Series in Law and Society, Hart, Oxford, 2014, isbn: 978-1-84946-390-4; 240 pages. In Rights and Courts in Pursuit of Social Change, Dia Anagnostou has compiled an edited volume for the Oñati International Series in Law and Society that calls attention “to marginalised individual and minorities who resort to courts, and to the implications of such legal action for democratic participation, State policy and social reform” (p. 1). In this sense, this book adds to the growing body of literature on issues of legal mobilisation in the multi-level European rights system. The mobilisation of law and legal claims as a means to pursue policy reform has long been stud- ied in us political science. In Europe, however, research on legal activity was mostly considered the province of sociologists of law who focused on the role of the courts and the proliferation of codified rights. However, the process of European integration – particularly as it refers to fundamental rights – has trig- gered a thriving multi-disciplinary academic interest in legal mobilisation and the use of judicial tactics (strategic litigation). The phrase ‘legal mobilisation’ refers to the invocation of legal rules and conventions by individuals or collective actors in a wide array of contexts and with various functions and goals. The present volume focuses primarily on liti- gation, though most of the contributions explore litigation as part of a broader framework of social and political action. Therefore, the real focus is on the socio-legal processes that underpin the expansion of codified and judicially enforced rights and the salience that the law and rights have acquired for mi- norities and vulnerable groups. A key feature of legal mobilisation on behalf of minority and vulnerable groups in Europe that Anagnostou and her fellow authors aptly highlight is that “the ‘rights revolution’ in Europe is closely linked with the emergence of a multi-level system of fundamental rights norms and (quasi-) judicial institu- tions existing at different levels of law and government” (p. 4). The only notable exception is the chapter by Liora Israël (“Rights on the Left? Social Movements, Law and Lawyers after 1968 in France”), which argues that the rise of legal mobilisation in France is better understood within a micro-level sociological framework than within a wider framework of supra-national (i.e., European Courts’) impact driven by the European integration process. The book is structured into three parts, each of which has a different focus. Part i addresses legal mobilisation in national contexts. Part ii considers © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15718115-02402004 <UN> 200 Book Reviews the European Courts, both the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and Part iii addresses the role played by ngos and transnational human rights networks. The essays are not limited to any particular type of rights: economic, social and cultural rights are examined, and so are more entrenched civil and political rights. The essays also pay constant attention to procedural issues and access to courts and to the growing body of equality and anti-discrimination law. Dia Anagnostou acknowledges the “exploratory character” of the book as being a sort of mapping exercise that intends to “[bring] to light distinct aspects and manifestations of legal mobilisation on behalf of minorities and vulnerable groups, as well as the factors that shape it” (p. 22). There are cer- tainly some risks in exploratory exercises, particularly in the entry points into under-studied territories not sufficiently illuminating the main characteristics of the phenomenon, or in providing too fragmented a picture. Arguably, these risks are more noticeable in the first section of the book than in the other two sections. Rights and legal mobilisation at the national level certainly constitute a vast and varied landscape across European countries. The scientific literature emphasises the decisive role played by domestic legal and political systems and cultures, even in regard to ‘just’ implementing or developing eu driven trends, such as rights litigation, minorities’ protection or anti-discrimination policy enhancement. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to give a com- plete picture of the variety of pending research issues in this field in only three chapters. The three chapters that constitute this part cast doubt on the idea of legal mobilisation as a means of developing protection for minorities, as well as on legal mobilisation being connected to the development of the European multi-level system. Whereas Bruno de Witte’s chapter 2 (“Linguistic Minori- ties in Western Europe: Expansion of Rights Without (Much) Litigation?”) is a comparative study, chapters 3 and 4 (“Legal Mobilisation at the Subnational Level: The Case of Language Rights in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Navarre” by Xabier Arzoz and “Rights on the Left? Social Movements, Law and Lawyers after 1968 in France” by Liora Israël) focus on particular case studies. All of these chapters, however, share a certain scepticism either about the role played by courts and the influence of European courts and rights litigation trends in the development and outcomes of the cases under study; as Bruno de Witte puts it: “the trajectory of greater recognition for language rights has been mainly steered by political mobilisation rather than litigation” (p. 51). According to Israël, even legal mobilisation should be considered a result of the trans- formation of the legal consciousness of lawyers in the wake of mass political protests. international journal on minority and group rights 24 (2017) 195-202 <UN>.
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