Overview of the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is the leading human rights organisation on the continent. Ireland was one of ten founding members of the Council of Europe in 1949. Ireland established a Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1999 under Ambassador Justin Harman.
The Council of Europe now has 46 Member States and 5 Observer States. Each of the Member States is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Signed by Ireland in 1950, the ECHR was designed to safeguard human rights, democracy and the rule of law and has been the cornerstone of human rights law across the continent for over seventy years.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a subsidiary body of the Council, oversees implementation of the Convention across the Council’s Member States
Benefits of the Council of Europe
- In promoting and defending democracy, human rights, and the rule-of-law, the Council makes Europe a more democratic and better place in which to live, study, work, and travel.
- The European Pharmacopoeia, an integral part of the Council of Europe, plays an important role in protecting everyone’s health by setting and monitoring internationally-recognised standards for safe medicines and medical treatments.
- The European Court of Human Rights helps protect all of our fundamental freedoms by allowing anyone to take a case to it if they believe one of their fundamental rights, as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, has been violated.
- The Council of Europe is responsible for making the world a safer place through its formulation of a range of key international conventions that, amongst many other things, contribute to the global fight against cybercrime, money laundering, human trafficking and terrorism.
- The Council of Europe works especially hard to eradicate racism and xenophobia, thereby fostering more tolerant, open-minded societies across Europe.
The Council formulates international conventions that aim to protect its core principles throughout Europe.
History of the Council of Europe
Ireland was one the ten original signatories of the Treaty of London in May 1949, establishing the Council of Europe as the first pan-European intergovernmental organisation. It was created in response to the horrors of the two world wars of the 20th century and is dedicated to the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Since then, the 10 original members (Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have been joined by almost all other European countries, and the organisation now has 46 member states. The Council of Europe includes all EU Member States. No state has joined the EU without first being a member of the Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg, France, with its headquarters in the Palais d’Europe.
Despite their overlapping use of the symbols, and their similar-sounding titles, the Council of Europe is an entirely separate entity to the European Union. The ECHR is however an important source for the protection of rights and freedoms within the EU. The Council of Europe counts all 27 EU states as members as well as nineteen additional members, including Ukraine, Turkey, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
Did you know?
The Council of Europe first designed, adopted and used the iconic European flag in 1955. It was only in 1986 that the European Parliament recommended that the flag be adopted as the emblem of the European Communities.