The council of europe and its mechanisms for protecting and guaranteeing human rights

• Author: Tudor Tanasescu
• Position: Faculty of Law University 'Bioterra' Bucharest, Romania
• Pages: 42-52

AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, http://univagora.ro/jour/index.php/aijjs

ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677

No. 1 (2016), pp. 42-52

42

THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE AND ITS MECHANISMS FOR PROTECTING AND

GUARANTEEING HUMAN RIGHTS

T. TĂNĂSESCU

Tudor Tănăsescu

Faculty of Law

University “Bioterra” Bucharest, Romania

*Correspondence: Tudor Tănăsescu, str. Pescăruşului nr. 3, Bl. B-24, Sc.3, Et. 6, Ap. 145,

Sector 2, Bucureşti, România.

E-mail: tanasescu.tudor@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The Council of Europe represents the main regional/European international

intergovernmental organization in which the most efficient mechanisms for guaranteeing and

protecting human rights have been initiated and developed.

The mechanisms implemented by this organization, aiming to protect and guarantee

human rights, established through the conventional judicial tools adopted by the Council of

Europe are: The European Court for Human Rights (jurisdictional mechanism), established

by the European Convention on Human Rights, the conventional non-jurisdictional

mechanisms for monitoring, as well as the system of regularly reporting and that of the

collective complaints, employed by the European Committee for social rights, created based

on the European Social Charter and its two protocols of 1991 and 1995, and the preventive

control based on inquiries carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of

Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, based on the European

Convention of the Prevention of Torture.

Added to these some extra-conventional mechanisms are considered, such as The

European Commission against racism and intolerance and The Commissioner for Human

Rights at the Council of Europe.

KEYWORDS: COUNCIL OF EUROPE, PROTECTION MECHANISMS,

GUARANTEEING, HUMAN RIGHTS.INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Generally, compared to the human rights protection system of the United Nations

Organization, the mechanisms of the Council of Europe for protecting and guaranteeing

human rights offer the image of a more integrated system, with additional possibilities of

reparatory compensations in cases when violations of human rights have occurred

1

. While the

UN system is very cautious in recognizing the possibility for willing states or individuals who

had been prejudiced to question how some of the human rights are being implemented in

practice, the European system takes further steps, establishing several procedures through

which the states can be summoned and forced to provide explanations and, in the end, to

execute certain verdicts that have ruled that human rights violations had taken place against

their citizens. In such cases, the states can be forced/condemned to provide reparatory

compensations and to adopt measures in order to reestablish the rights to the persons whose

fundamental rights had been violated.

At first, the European system for protecting human rights enacted by the Convention

on defending Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms comprised three bodies: The

1

Duculescu Victor, Legal p rotection of human rights, Publishing House Lumina Lex, Bucharest, 1994 p.94;

Tănăsescu Tudor, International protection of human rights. University Course, Publishing Ho use Sitech,

Craiova, 2015, p.91; Scăunaş Stelian, International law of human rights. Uni versity Course, Publishing Ho use

All Beck, Bucharest 2003, p.54