European Convention on Human Rights
The 1950 convention and court that enforce rights across 46 states
Overview
Drafted in the early Council of Europe and opened in Rome in 1950, the convention guarantees rights from life and fair trial to expression and privacy, enforced since 1998 full time by the Strasbourg court on applications from individuals. Judgments bind states, which must remedy violations, and the court's docket of tens of thousands of cases makes it the world's busiest human rights court. Its relationship with national supreme courts, especially the British, is a running constitutional conversation. Protocol after protocol added rights, from property to prohibition of discrimination, expanding the catalog beyond 1950.
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