STRASBOURG, France — Europe is entering a big election year. In 2017, voters in a range of countries, including France, Germany, the Netherlands and now possibly Italy, will go to the polls. We can expect campaigns fought on stark battle lines. Austerity policies and immigration will feature. So will the role of European institutions.

This is already evident in France, where the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights has found itself the subject of debate in the lead-up to the presidential election. The court was established after World War II, as part of the Council of Europe, to ensure that states uphold the European Convention on Human Rights. When the French jurist and former court president René Cassin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968, he lauded the court’s judges, among others, as “the real laureates” for their work in protecting individual liberty from arbitrary state power.

Yet today, these same judges are increasingly derided as an impediment to democracy by politicians looking to appeal to nationalist sentiment. The court and the European Convention on Human Rights have come under attack in a growing number of European countries.

This is symptomatic of a wider breakdown in the postwar consensus that accepted international law as a fair price for peace and prosperity. These days, the public appetite for international cooperation is waning. Many people are feeling the sharp end of globalization, as their communities face widening inequality and mismanaged diversity. Political programs that promise hard borders and unbridled national sovereignty have become an easier sell.