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PACE President hails 60 years of Human Rights Convention, looks to the future

03/11/2010 President | European Convention on Human Rights

The European Convention on Human Rights has helped to build a Europe united from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and now faces a new chapter in its history with EU accession and reform of the Court, PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has said. Speaking at a conference in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the Convention, he pledged PACE's support for these changes, adding that he would “spare no effort” to promote ratification of Protocol 12 to the Convention, which prohibits discrimination.

But the President also warned that the European Court of Human Rights should be a “last resort measure”, and that the main responsibility for protecting human rights lies with national institutions. While the Court could help to identify systemic problems in member states, it was the task of national bodies to ensure citizens’ rights under the Convention are fully protected, he said.

Links

Full speech Web-file: PACE's role in creating the ECHR