The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), lies at the heart of a highly sophisticated regional legal order developed under the authority of the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg, France. The Convention initially provided for a two-tier system of supervisory institutions, consisting of the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. In 1998, these two part-time institutions were replaced by a single-tier, full-time European Court of Human Rights. By 2004, the Court's jurisdiction extended to all of the Council of Europe's forty-six member states.

The origins of the ECHR may be traced back to the Western European federalist movements that gained a degree of prominence in the years immediately after the end of the Second World...