EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS (1950)

Abstract

This chapter highlights various aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the year 1955. The ECHR was signed in Rome on November 4, 1950 after a comparatively short drafting period. The ECHR is a treaty concluded under the rules of international law and creates obligations as between the different member States. The machinery of collective enforcement through the convention organs on the basis of individual or state applications is the peculiar feature of the ECHR. In several countries, municipal courts have developed an extensive case law based on the ECHR. The obligations of the member States under the ECHR are primarily to respect the individual rights guaranteed therein. The system created by the ECHR is the only example of judicial protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms by international law that may be assimilated with constitutional procedures of the same sort known in several countries.