Editorial : The role of the European Court of Human Rights : an evaluation

Abstract

The principal and overriding aim of the system set up by the European Convention on Human Rights is to bring about a situation in which in each and every Contracting State the right and freedoms are effectively protected, that is primarily that the relevant structures and procedures are in place to allow individual citizens to vindicate those rights and to assert those freedoms in the national courts. This the first level at which Convention protection should operate, but it is not the only one. The quantum leap achieved by the Convention was the recognition of the individual as a subject of international law and the offering of international protection to individuals. At the heart of this system are the notions of human dignity, of democracy and the rule of law. These aims come together in that it is through individual applications that structural or systemic weaknesses are identified.