The aim of the presented thesis is to assess the potential
impact of the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) on the
conduct of Russian Federation during the armed conflict in
Chechnya. To this end, the research builds on the theoretical
model of Alec Stone Sweet arguing that judicialization is
successful as soon as the judicial mechanism develops authority
over the strategic behaviour of actors under its jurisdiction.
In this sense, the research proved that the ECtHR indeed
possesses such quality and despite some discussed limitations
is capable of influencing the Russian conduct in the fight
against Chechen separatists. Council of Europe, in this sense,
represents a unique non-reciprocal cooperative international
regime that would be untenable without a judicial body. On the
other hand, the research showed that Sweet's argument that
judicialization is a form of socialization and states not only
get progressively used to the judicial mechanism, but also
engage constructively, has so far failed to materialise. To the
contrary, with growing number of lost cases in Strasbourg,
Russia started to securitize the discourse applied both
domestically and internationally vis-à-vis the Court. The
current tension is then explained by occurrence of two mutually
hostile win-sets on opposite levels of Putnam's game model.