The European Convention on Human Rights underwent a spectacular evolution over the first fifty years of its life. In recent times the European Court of Human Rights has been compared to a quasi-constitutional court for Europe in the field of human rights, and for some time the Convention has been viewed as a European Bill of Rights. The 'coming of age' of the ECHR system in the late 1990's was marked by the entry into force of Protocol 11, creating a new, full time Court.
By contrast those who first proposed a European human rights guarantee were driven by an ambition to put in place a...