History of the Council of Europe

Collectif

Description

The Council of Europe, the oldest European organisation, was founded in 1949 with the aim of unifying the continent as a whole. The decision to establish its headquarters in Strasbourg was, moreover, symbolic of the desire for reconciliation between peoples. From the outset the Council of Europe adopted an institutional structure comprising a committee of ministers and a parliamentary assembly - the first in Europe. This book retraces the history of the Organisation.



Consisting initially of Western European states, the Council of Europe was destined to embrace all the continent's countries, but the Cold War delayed its enlargement. It is only since 1989 that the Council of Europe has become a truly pan-European organisation, now comprising 47 member states.



Its mission is based on three major goals: protecting human rights, promoting democratic values and guaranteeing the rule of law. The Council of Europe is also very active in fostering co-operation in all areas of life: education, sport, culture, etc. Starting in 1959, the European Court of Human Rights grew to become the Organisation's flagship institution: its judgments are binding on the member states.



As an intergovernmental organisation, the Council of Europe has had to contend with the growth of the European Union and has sought constantly to redefine its role in international relations. In these early years of the 21st century, will it succeed in securing a key position in the European institutional architecture?

Sujets

• Droit
• Europe
• Démocratie
• Sciences humaines et sociales
• Histoire
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Conseil de l'Europe
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9789287178459
• Langue: English

Extrait

Legal notice
French edition:
Histoire du Conseil de l’Europe
ISBN 978-92-871-7604-2
The opinions expressed in this work are the responsibility of the author and do not neces- sarily reflect the official policy of the Council of Europe.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic (CD-Rom, Internet, etc.) or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Directorate of Communication (F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex or [e-mail] ).
Copyrights
Cover design and layout: Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP), Council of Europe
Digital publishing partner: IS Edition , Marseille
Council of Europe Publishing F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex
http://book.coe.int
ISBN (book): 978-92-871-7633-2
ISBN (ePub): 978-92-871-7845-9
ISBN (Mobi): 978-92-871-7846-6
© Council of Europe, July 2013
Contents
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List of acronyms and abbreviations
CAP Common Agricultural Policy
CCC/CDCC Council for Cultural Co-operation/Steering Committee for Cultural Co-operation
CDDS Steering Committee for the Development of Sport
CEM Council of European Municipalities
CEPEJ European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice
CETS Council of Europe Treaty Series
CICMUE International Co-ordinating Committee of Movements for European Unity
CLRAE Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe
Convention/ECHR Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms or European Convention on Human Rights
Court European Court of Human Rights
CPT European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
CSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe
ECRI European Commission against Racism and Intolerance
ECSC European Coal and Steel Community
EDC European Defence Community
EEC European Economic Community
EFTA European Free Trade Association
ENP European Neighbourhood Policy
EPA European Political Authority
EPAS Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport
EPC European Political Cooperation
ETS European Treaty Series
EU European Union
Euratom European Atomic Energy Community
EUR-OPA European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement
EYC European Youth Centre
EYCB European Youth Centre Budapest
EYF European Youth Foundation
FRG Federal Republic of Germany
GDR German Democratic Republic
GMT Multidisciplinary Group on International Action against Terrorism
GRECO Group of States against Corruption
ILO International Labour Organization
INGO International non-governmental organisation
IRA Irish Republican Army
LDA Local Democracy Agency
NALAS Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South- East Europe
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGO Non-governmental organisation
NSC North-South Centre
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OEEC Organisation for European Economic Co-operation
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
UEF Union of European Federalists
WEU Western European Union
WHO World Health Organization
Foreword
More than 60 years after its foundation, the Council of Europe has finally found its historian, a young lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. Since the 1980s, it has been a recurrent wish of this organisation to have its history written. Several times abandoned, the project has become a reality with this book, an abridged version of a post-doctoral thesis submitted in 2011, the full text of which was recently published by a specialist publisher of books on European issues. {1} More concise than the original academic work, this publication provides an excellent overview for readers anxious to get to the heart of the matter.
The story of the Council of Europe is an unusual one. Founded in the aftermath of the Second World War to achieve greater unity among Europeans through "common action in economic, social, cultural, scientific, legal and administrative matters and in the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms" {2} , the Council of Europe was rapidly supplanted by the European Economic Community, which evolved into the current European Union (EU). Based in Strasbourg, which is the seat of all its institutions (for example the Committee of Ministers, Parliamentary Assembly, Secretariat General, Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, European Court of Human Rights and the Commissioner for Human Rights), it is often confused in the public mind with the European Parliament, an EU body which for a long time held its sessions in the Council of Europe’s assembly chamber. The institutionalisation of summits of the heads of state or government of the EU member states in the form of the European Council adds to the confusion, not to mention the frequent mistranslations. {3}
While the Council of Europe’s image may seem a little vague, it is also paradoxical. Established as a traditional inter-governmental organisation in which the Committee of Ministers takes the important decisions on a unanimous basis while the Parliamentary Assembly is purely consultative, the Council of Europe is most famous for its human rights protection system, the keystone of which, the European Court of Human Rights, is in practice a supranational body based on acceptance by the member states of its jurisdiction and the right of individual petition. Perceived initially as an embodiment of the Cold War, like all the organisations founded in Europe before the détente of the 1970s, it emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the organisation ideally placed to integrate the former communist countries with minimum delay. After being founded in 1949 with only 10 member states and then gradually extended to include all European states west of the Iron Curtain, it came to embody after 1989 a "Greater Europe" covering the whole continent from the Atlantic to the Urals. Conceived by its founders to defend the democratic values of peace, liberty, solidarity and human rights, it has a low profile among the general public, which is largely indifferent to it.
Birte Wassenberg’s book does justice to the Council of Europe. In analysing its activities over the years it shows the scale of the co-operation instituted. First of all, in its major sphere of interest, the furtherance of human rights: the 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has not only been periodically amended by protocols to improve protection of those rights, it has also been supplemented by numerous other conventions. For instance, the European Social Charter seeks to protect economic and social rights. Other agreements concern the prevention of torture or terrorism, the rights of minorities, the fight against violence or against organised crime, biomedicine, and so on. Activities were quickly extended to other fields, too: cultural exchanges, harmonisation in education, heritage and environmental conservation, animal welfare, and so on.
While the Council of Europe is active on many fronts, the method employed makes this co-operation unclear to some observers. This is because it involves complex intergovernmental agreements which take a long time to adopt and are difficult to implement. Jointly prepared by Committee of Ministers experts, members of the Parliamentary Assembly, Secretariat officials and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) representing civil society, these agreements are not necessarily accepted by all the member states but may sometimes be signed by non-member states, and signatories are not always obliged to sign up to all the articles. Once adopted, these treaties come into force after they have been ratified by a certain minimum number of states determined on an ad hoc basis, thus creating an à la carte, variable-geometry Europe. This phenomenon has become even more marked since the latest waves of accessions, involving states the political culture of which differs from that of the founders. The Council of Europe may well be a "school of democracy", but it is more diverse with a membership of 47 than with a membership of 10 or 23, as in earlier days.
The Council of Europe is therefore compelled to find other ways of asserting its identity. The Assembly in particular realised the need for this at a very early stage. It began by taking control of its agenda. It granted itself the right to discuss the political aspects of security and defence issues, which are not officially part of its mandate. It made it its practice to debate all problems emerging on the international scene with the intention of becoming a think tank of European unification. It changed its name on its own authority, taking the title "Parliamentary Assembly" in 1974 in place of "Consultative Assembly", as it is referred to in the Statute. Even more importantly, it sought for decades to make the Council of Europe the overall framework for European integration. Initially, in the 1950s, it was able to count on the United Kingdom, which wanted to exercise external oversight over the European Economic Community, of which it was not yet a member. When London applied to join the Community, these hopes vanished for a time. They were revived in 1989 when, at the instigation of its Secretary General