The neoliberal theory of international regimes together with the constructivist theory of security as a speech act has claimed the importance of the political discourse applied by a state actor while taking any course of action. In order to maintain the one’s perceived status or one’s soft power within the international system, states are forced to legitimize their actions. One of the strongest tools of such legitimization is international law. Thus, it is no longer possible to dismiss international law within the discipline of international relations as the “language of politics is [currently] replenished with language of law” and even the security policies considered by many as the crudest hard-issue requires legal reasoning and explaining. Nevertheless, the simple need to legitimize one’s actions within the international law together with a wish to maintain one’s status does not prevent states from unlawful actions and the simple realist argument that “where is no power, there can be no law” maintains some of its original appeal. However, the question becomes somewhat more complicated, as soon as one considers the situation, when a citizen can bypass the state and “directly use international allies and extra-domestic fora to put pressure on the state.” Within the European context, the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR) represents one of the strongest examples of such international forum whose decision may directly influence or even alter the political behavior of a state over which it exercises its jurisdiction. In this sense, the phenomenon of “de-politicization of democracy and judicialization of politics,” well described on the national level, is transposed onto the international level and the unlawful behavior of respective states bears much stronger consequences. For that reason, the presented thesis focuses on the Council of Europe and the ECtHR and discusses their alleged ability to influence the state’s decisions in security issues. Firstly, the thesis will discuss in general the phenomena of judicialization of politics and the, so often overlooked, overlap between the disciplines of international relations and international law, including human rights law and humanitarian law. Secondly, it will discuss the general trends in the field, that is, the applicability of European Convention on Human Rights during the state of emergency and then in state of war, potential convergence between the Convention and the international humanitarian law as presented in Geneva Conventions and their protocols; and attempted use of the Convention during the conflicts in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirdly and lastly, it will turn its attention to the comparison of current two examples, that is, Russia and Turkey. The question is whether the rulings of ECtHR have influenced or altered anyhow the conduct of these two members of Council of Europe in Chechnya and the so-called Kurdistan, respectively. Bibliography: Buzan, Barry, Wilde, Jawo De, Waever, Ole, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publisher, 1997. 2Finnemore, Martha and Toope, Stephen J., Alternatives to Legalization: Richer Views on Law and Politics, p. 753-768, in International Organization, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2001. Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O. (eds.), Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993. Umland, Andreas (ed.), The Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Russia: Philosphical, Legal, and Empirical Studies, Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2001. Jouannet, Emmanuelle, Universalism and Imperialism: The True-False Paradox of International Law?, p. 379-407, in European Journal of International Law, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2007.