Treaty of London 1949 - Statute of the Council of Europe
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The Council of Europe (
French:
Conseil de l'Europe) is an
international organization promoting co-operation between all countries of
Europe in the areas of legal standards,
human rights,
democratic development, the
rule of law
and cultural co-operation. It was founded in 1949, has 47 member states
with some 800 million citizens, and is an entirely separate body
[1] from the
European Union (EU), which has only 27 member states. Unlike the EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws. The two do however share
certain symbols such as the
flag and the
anthem.
The best known bodies of the Council of Europe are the
European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the
European Convention on Human Rights, and the
European Pharmacopoeia
Commission, which sets the quality standards for pharmaceutical
products in Europe. The Council of Europe's work has resulted in
standards, charters and conventions to facilitate cooperation between
European countries.
Its statutory institutions are the
Committee of Ministers comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, the
Parliamentary Assembly composed of
MPs from the parliament of each member state, and the
Secretary General heading the secretariat of the Council of Europe. The
Commissioner for Human Rights
is an independent institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to
promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states.
The headquarters of the Council of Europe are in
Strasbourg,
France, with
English and
French as its two
official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the
Congress also use
German,
Italian, and
Russian for some of their work.
History
n a speech at the
University of Zurich on 19 September 1946, Sir
Winston Churchill called for a "kind of
United States of Europe" and the creation of a Council of Europe.
[2][3] He had spoken of a Council of Europe as early as 1943 in a radio broadcast.
[2]
The future structure of the Council of Europe was discussed at a
specific congress of several hundred leading politicians, government
representatives and civil society in
The Hague,
Netherlands,
in 1948. There were two schools of thought competing: some favoured a
classical international organisation with representatives of
governments, while others preferred a political forum with
parliamentarians. Both approaches were finally combined through the
creation of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly
under the Statute of the Council of Europe. This dual intergovernmental
and inter-parliamentary structure was later copied for the
European Communities,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The Council of Europe was founded on 5 May 1949 by the
Treaty of London.
The Treaty of London or the Statute of the Council of Europe was signed
in London on that day by ten states: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland,
Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United
Kingdom. Many other states followed, especially after the democratic
transitions in central and eastern Europe during the early 1990s, and
the Council of Europe now includes all European states except
Belarus,
[4] Kazakhstan,
[4] Vatican City[5] and the European
states with limited recognition.
[a]
Aims and achievements
Article 1(a) of the Statute states that "The aim of the Council of
Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose
of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their
common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress."
Therefore, membership is open to all European states which seek European
integration, accept the principle of the rule of law and are able and
willing to guarantee democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms.
While the member states of the European Union transfer national legislative and executive powers to the
European Commission and the
European Parliament in specific areas under
European Community law, Council of Europe member states maintain their sovereignty but commit themselves through conventions (i.e.,
public international law)
and co-operate on the basis of common values and common political
decisions. Those conventions and decisions are developed by the member
states working together at the Council of Europe, whereas secondary
European Community law is set by the organs of the European Union. Both
organisations function as concentric circles around the common
foundations for
European integration,
with the Council of Europe being the geographically wider circle. The
European Union could be seen as the smaller circle with a much higher
level of integration through the transfer of powers from the national to
the EU level. Being part of public international law, Council of Europe
conventions could also be opened for signature to non-member states
thus facilitating equal co-operation with countries outside Europe (see
chapter below).
The Council of Europe's most famous achievement is the
European Convention on Human Rights, which was adopted in 1950 following a report by the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. The Convention created the
European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg. The Court supervises compliance with the European
Convention on Human Rights and thus functions as the highest European
court for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is to this court
that Europeans can bring cases if they believe that a member country has
violated their fundamental rights.
The wide activities and achievements of the Council of Europe can be
found in detail on its official website. In a nutshell, the Council of
Europe works in the following areas:
Institutions
The institutions of the Council of Europe are:
- The Secretary General, who is elected for a term of five years by the Parliamentary Assembly and heads the Secretariat of the Council of Europe. The current Secretary General is the former Prime Minister of Norway, Thorbjørn Jagland, who took office on 1 October 2009.[11]
- The Committee of Ministers, comprising the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of all 47 member states who are represented by their Permanent Representatives and Ambassadors
accredited to the Council of Europe. Committee of Ministers'
presidencies are held in alphabetical order for six months following the
English alphabet: Turkey 11/2010-05/2011, Ukraine 05/2011-11/2011, the United Kingdom 11/2011-05/2012, Albania 05/2012-11/2012, Andorra 11/2012-05/2013, Armenia 05/2013-11/2013, Austria 11/2013-05/2014, and so on.
- The Parliamentary Assembly
(PACE), which comprises national parliamentarians from all member
states and elects its President for a year with the possibility of being
re-elected for another year. In January 2010, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu from Turkey
was elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly. National
parliamentary delegations to the Assembly must reflect the political
spectrum of their national parliament, i.e., comprise government and
opposition parties. The Assembly appoints members as rapporteurs with
the mandate to prepare parliamentary reports on specific subjects. The
British MP Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was rapporteur for the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights. Dick Marty's reports on secret CIA
detentions and rendition flights in Europe became quite famous in 2007.
Other Assembly rapporteurs were instrumental in, for example, the
abolition of the death penalty in Europe, the political and human rights
situation in Chechnya, disappeared persons in Belarus, freedom of expression in the media and many other subjects.
- The Congress of the Council of Europe
(Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe), which was
created in 1994 and comprises political representatives from local and
regional authorities in all member states. The most influential
instruments of the Council of Europe in this field are the European Charter of Local Self-Government
of 1985 and the European Outline Convention on Transfrontier
Co-operation between Territorial Communities or Authorities of 1980.
- The European Court of Human Rights, created under the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950, is composed of a judge from each member state elected for a renewable term of six years by the Parliamentary Assembly
and is headed by the elected President of the Court. Since 2007,
Jean-Paul Costa from France is the President of the Court. Under the new
Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights,
the terms of office of judges shall be nine years but non-renewable.
Ratification of Protocol No. 14 was delayed by Russia for a number of
years, but won support to be passed in January 2010.
- The Commissioner for Human Rights, who is elected by the Parliamentary Assembly
for a non-renewable term of six years since the creation of this
position in 1999. Since April 2012, this position has been held by Nils Muižnieks from Latvia.
- The Conference of INGOs. NGOs can participate in the INGOs Conference of the Council of Europe.
Since the [Resolution (2003)8] adopted by the Committee of Ministers on
19 November 2003, they are given a "participatory status".
- Information Offices of the Council of Europe in many member states.
