Council of Europe – Test Yourself

In 1951, Germany's chancellor and foreign minister Adenauer said in a speech at the Council of Europe: "It is of great significance for the political development of Europe that here, in the organs of the Council of Europe, we have a platform on which the representatives of Europe meet regularly, discuss their worries and anxieties, their desires and their hopes, a platform where they try to establish common criteria for evaluating their requirements, and where, in general, they co-operate with one another in a spirit of fairness and of good neighbourliness. In other words, here we find an expression of the European conscience."

Cases can only be brought before the European Court of Human Rights after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, i.e. when the highest domestic court has delivered a judgment.

The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 after the end of World War II in Strassburg, a city in a war-torn border region of France.
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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.

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) consists of democratically elected members of each member State's national parliament.
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The European Parliament and the European Commission are both bodies of the European Union. They are not connected to the Council of Europe.

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 "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 European Court of Human Rights is a specialised court. It judges cases where a member state of the Council of Europe has violated the human rights of either a person or another member State.

All 47 member States of the Council of Europe have signed the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

The Venice Commission's official name is "European Commission for Democracy through Law". It was created by the Council of Europe in 1990 to provide emergency constitutional aid to Eastern European states in transition. Today, the Venice Commission - who is named after the Italian city where it holds its plenary meetings - is one of Europe’s leading advisory bodies for legal and constitutional matters.

The Council of Europe's Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence - that is the Istanbul Convention's official name - is named after the place it was opened for signature in 2014. Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1949, the organisation's founding year. There is a Council of Europe convention on the protection of archaeological heritage called the Valletta Convention.

Contrary to the United Nations' system, no Council of Europe member State has veto power.
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The ten founding members are: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The four largest financial contributors are: Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

The Russian Federation joined the Council of Europe in 1996. After its attack on Ukraine in 2022, the country was expelled from the organisation.

Turkey became a member in the organisation's founding year 1949. Azerbaijan joined the organisation in 2001. Montenegro was the latest member state to join in 2007

The European Court of Human Rights is a specialised court, created by the Council of Europe in order to judge cases of violations of human rights, as they are set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
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The European Union's highest tribunal, the Court of Justice (ECJ), is based in Luxemburg and is not connected to the Council of Europe. Neither is the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is based in The Hague.

Since 1990, the "European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" (CPT) regularly checks prisons and other places of detention in all Council of Europe member States.
GRETA is the Council of Europe's monitoring-body with regard to trafficking in human beings. ECRI is the Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance. GRECO is the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption.

The Council of Europe is Europe's oldest and largest intergovernmental organisation for human rights, and the European Court of Human Rights is its best known instrument.
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The European Union (EU) is a supranational union of states, and the European Council and the European Commission are bodies of the European Union. None of them are connected to the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe is not only the continents largest but also its oldest intergovernmental organisation for human rights. 1973 is the founding year of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); 1993 that of the European Union in its current form.

The Council of Europe uses English and French as working languages. Interpreters for both languages are present in all the meetings, and documents are also published in both of them.

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).

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.

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 Russian Federation was expelled from the Council of Europe with immediate effect in March 2022 after 26 years of membership, due to its war on Ukraine - an unprecedented event in the organisation's long history.

The military junta in Greece (1967-1974) pre-empted expulsion in 1969 by withdrawing from membership. Turkey was temporarily deprived of its voting rights in the Parliamentary Assembly after the military coup in 1980.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a binding treaty between all 46 Council of Europe member States. Violations of the treaty can be brought before the European Court of Human Rights.

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 judges are elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from a shortlist of three candidates, proposed by each State, for a non-renewable term of nine years.