ABSTRACT
This Convention (hereafter ‘ECHR’ or ‘the Convention’) was issued in 1951 by the Council of Europe in the political and intellectual milieu of the aftermath of the Second World War and the early years of the Cold War. Recent and current events, the creators of the Convention believed, made it clear that the individual citizen must have positive rights enforceable, if necessary, against the State of which he was a citizen and by a body independent of that State. A European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or ‘European Court’) was therefore created, with judges representing each of the Member States of the Council of Europe, and a Commission to investigate applications on behalf of the Court.
