Punitive Damages in Strasbourg

‘Punitive damages’ have long been controversially discussed in national as well as in international law. This is not different for the European Court of Human Rights. Until now the Court has considered it officially inappropriate. One would thus expect that punitive damages are not used by the Court. But is this really the case? This chapter finds that the Court has been at the forefront of an international trend, using just satisfaction to prevent further violations of human rights and punish wrongdoing governments in several instances. The purpose of this chapter is, first, to argue that the Court uses punitive damages implicitly and, second, that there are well-established social-science reasons why punitive damages should be used. The idea of ‘punitive damages’ is strongly connected to the effectuation of law. Wherever the enforcement might be weak, ‘punitive damages’ can set the correct incentives for following the law.