ABSTRACT
The European Convention (ECHR) ‘constitutes’ an international human rights regime. What does this mean? ‘Constituting’ has two different senses, both of which are important to our argument. The first sense relates to the Convention as a document that creates both a catalogue of rights and an institution, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Convention puts in place rights that have ‘an obligatory judicial character’1 and the various mechanisms that allow remedies to be sought for their breach. Thus, the Convention is not merely a declaratory statement of those rights that the international community considers desirable. Those states that have ratified the Convention can be held to account in an international court should a breach of their obligations be upheld. Our focus in this chapter will be on the mechanisms that make this radical international legal system possible.
