1. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was drawn up within the Council of Europe. It was opened for signature in Rome on 4 November 1950 and entered into force in September 1953. Taking as their starting point the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the framers of the Convention sought to pursue the aims of the Council of Europe through the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Convention was to represent the first steps for the collective enforcement of certain of the rights set out in the Universal Declaration.

2. In addition to laying down a catalogue of civil and political rights and freedoms*, the Convention set up a mechanism for the enforcement of the obligations entered into by Contracting States. Three institutions were entrusted with this responsibility: the European Commission of Human Rights (set up in 1954), the European Court of Human Rights (set up in 1959) and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the latter organ being composed of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the member States or their representatives.

3. Under the Convention in its original version, complaints could be brought against Contracting States either by other Contracting States or by individual applicants (individuals, groups of individuals or non-governmental organisations). Recognition of the right of individual application was, however, optional and it could therefore be exercised only against those States which had accepted it (Protocol No. 11 to the Convention was subsequently to make its acceptance compulsory, see paragraph 6 below).

The complaints were first the subject of a preliminary examination by the Commission, which determined their admissibility. Where an application was declared admissible, the Commission placed itself at the parties' disposal with a view to brokering a friendly settlement. If no settlement was forthcoming, it drew up a report establishing the facts and expressing an opinion on the merits of the case. The report was transmitted to the Committee of Ministers.

4. Where the respondent State had accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, the Commission and/or any Contracting State concerned had a period of three months following the transmission of the report to the Committee of Ministers within which to bring the case before the Court for a final, binding adjudication. Individuals were not entitled to bring their cases before the Court.

If a case was not referred to the Court, the Committee of Ministers decided whether there had been a violation of the Convention and, if appropriate, awarded “just satisfaction” to the victim. The Committee of Ministers also had responsibility for supervising the execution of the Court’s judgments.

5. Since the Convention’s entry into force thirteen Protocols have been adopted. Protocols Nos. 1, 4, 6, 7, 12** and 13 added further rights and liberties to those guaranteed by the Convention, while Protocol No. 2 conferred on the Court the power to give advisory opinions. Protocol No. 9 enabled individual applicants to bring their cases before the Court subject to ratification by the respondent State and acceptance by a screening panel. Protocol No. 11 restructured the enforcement machinery (see below). The remaining Protocols concerned the organisation of and procedure before the Convention institutions.

6. From 1980 onwards, the steady growth in the number of cases brought before the Convention institutions made it increasingly difficult to keep the length of proceedings within acceptable limits. The problem was aggravated by the accession of new Contracting States from 1990. The number of applications registered annually with the Commission increased from 404 in 1981 to 4,750 in 1997. By that year, the number of unregistered or provisional files opened each year in the Commission had risen to over 12,000. The Court’s statistics reflected a similar story, with the number of cases referred annually rising from 7 in 1981 to 119 in 1997.

The increasing case-load prompted a lengthy debate on the necessity for a reform of the Convention supervisory machinery, resulting in the adoption of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention. The aim was to simplify the structure with a view to shortening the length of proceedings while strengthening the judicial character of the system by making it fully compulsory and abolishing the Committee of Ministers’ adjudicative role.

Protocol No. 11, which came into force on 1 November 1998, replaced the existing, part-time Court and Commission by a single, full-time Court. For a transitional period of one year (until 31 October 1999) the Commission continued to deal with the cases which it had previously declared admissible.

7.  During the three years which followed the entry into force of Protocol No. 11 the Court’s case-load grew at an unprecedented rate. The number of applications registered rose from 5,979 in 1998 to 13,858 in 2001, an increase of approximately 130%. Concerns about the Court’s capacity to deal with the growing volume of cases led to requests for additional resources and speculation about the need for further reform.

A Ministerial Conference on Human Rights, held in Rome on 3 and 4 November 2000 to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Convention for signature, had initiated a process of reflection on reform of the system. In November 2002, as a follow-up to a Ministerial Declaration on “the Court of Human Rights for Europe”, the Ministers’ Deputies issued terms of reference to the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) to draw up a set of concrete and coherent proposals covering measures that could be implemented without delay and possible amendments to the Convention.

* See Appendix I of the Court Information document for the list of headings of substantive Articles.

** This Protocol will enter into force when ratified by ten Contracting States.