Council of Europe – Test Yourself

Choosing Strassburg as the seat of the Council of Europe in 1949 had a lot of symbolic meaning since the city - as well as the entire French border region of Alsace - perfectly mirrored the turbulent history of the whole continent.

The staggering number of applications shows what an important role the Court plays for people all over Europe, and to what extent the Council of Europe's member States have to step up their national human rights protection.

The Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) entered into force in 1953. This international treaty is the basis of the human rights protection of the whole continent.
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The Lisbon Treaty (2009) regularises the cooperation within the European Union member States. The Rome Statute (1998) is the legal basis of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The Treaty of Rome (1957) established i.a. the European Economic Community (EEC).

The "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" - that's the European Convention on Human Rights' official name - was adopted by the member States of the Council of Europe in 1950 and entered into force in 1953.

The annual contribution of each member State towards the ordinary budget of the Council of Europe is based on a formula that takes into account population and gross domestic product. On top of that, the member states are free to fund particular projects via voluntary contributions.

The founding States of the Council of Europe created the ECHR in order to prevent atrocities like the ones committed during the Second World War from ever happening again and at the same time promote the development of democracy in Europe and thereby bring lasting peace to the continent.

The Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights is a specialised court. It exclusively judges cases where the human rights of a person, a group of persons, or another state have been violated by a member state of the Council of Europe.

Ever since its foundation in 1949, the Council of Europe has protected and promoted human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
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The European Union is not an intergovernmental organisation but a supranational union of 27 member States. It is not connected to the Council of Europe, and neither is the European Parliament, which is an EU body.

Former Swiss Federal Counselor Alain Berset was elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe in 2024. Michael O’Flaherty is the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights. Bjørn Berge ist the Council of Europe’s Deputy Secretary General. Luzius Wildhaber was the first President of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

An aerial view of the European Court of Human Rights reveals that the building mimics the scales of justice with the two main court rooms as weighing dishes.
 
 
 

The European Court of Human Rights is part of the Council of Europe, and both are based in Strassburg (France). Luxemburg houses the European Union's Court of Justice (ECJ) as well as the European Court of Auditors. Several bodies of the European Union are based in Brussels. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is based in The Hague.

1972, Herbert von Karajan arranged three different instrumental versions of the main theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as a European anthem for the Council of Europe. In 1985, a predecessor organisation of today's European Union (EU) adopted the anthem as well.

The European Convention on Human Rights is unique. The treaty protects the human rights of 700 million people in all member States of the Council or Europe, and violations can be brought before the European Court of Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights is the Council of Europe's most important instrument. As such, it gets less than 1/4 of the organisation's annual ordinary budget 2026 of € 418 million.

The Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) prohibits certain acts and guarantees certain rights. Among the latter are the right to life (Article 2) and the right to liberty and security (Article 5).

All 27 member States of the European Union (EU) are members of the Council of Europe as well and have signed the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Among the 46 member States of the Council of Europe are countries from the outer edges of the continent, like, for example Turkey or Azerbaijan.
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27 is the number of member States of the European Union; 57 that of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Convinced, that Europe was in need of a uniting symbol, the Council of Europe adopted the European flag in 1955. In 1985, a predecessor organisation of today's European Union (EU) adopted the flag as well.

By joining the Council of Europe, member States accept the terms stipulated in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and put themselves under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

Since Germany didn't have full sovereignty in foreign affairs after the end of the Second World War, the country was only able to join the Council of Europe as a full member State in 1951.

Every person - regardless of their nationality - can bring a case before the European Court of Human Rights if their human rights have been violated by a member State of the Council of Europe.

The Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (Pompidou Group) was founded in 1971 at the initiative of the late French president Georges Pompidou.

The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organisation; therefore, its members are states.

In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted an instrumental version of the main theme of the last movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as its anthem. The lyrics in the original version - "Ode of Joy" - had been taken from a poem by German poet Friedrich Schiller. In 1985, the European anthem was adopted by a predecessor of today's European Union.