European Convention on Human Rights

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), convention adopted by the Council of Europe in 1950 to guard fundamental freedoms and human rights in Europe. Together with its 11 additional protocols, the convention—which entered into force on September 3, 1953—represents the most advanced and successful international experiment in the field to date.

On November 4, 1950, the Council of Europe agreed to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the substantive provisions of which were based on a draft of what is now the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Over the years, the enforcement mechanisms created by the convention have developed a considerable body of case law on questions regulated by the convention, which the state parties typically have honoured and respected. In some European states, the provisions of the convention are deemed to be part of domestic constitutional or statutory law. Where that is not the case, the state parties have taken other measures to make their domestic laws conform with their obligations under the convention.

A significant streamlining of the European human rights regime took place on November 1, 1998, when Protocol No. 11 to the convention entered into force. Pursuant to the protocol, two of the enforcement mechanisms created by the convention—the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights—were merged into a reconstituted court, which is now empowered to hear individual (rather than only interstate) petitions or complaints without the prior approval of the local government. The decisions of the court are final and binding on the state parties to the convention.