The Council of Europe and the European system

Abstract

Within Europe there are three principal regional organizations which play a role in the protection and promotion of human rights: the Council of Europe (COE); the European Union (EU); and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The geographic coverage, institutional and legal arrangements, and relative approaches of each to addressing and eradicating torture and other ill-treatment mean that whilst distinct, there are some considerable areas of overlap between them. In what follows, the relevant legal and institutional frameworks and the work of these three systems to address the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment are introduced. Section 2 provides a very brief contextual overview of the three systems within which normative and institutional means of addressing torture and ill-treatment have been developed, after which the chapter focusses on the COE and EU. Section 3 introduces the applicable legal frameworks and Section 4 introduces the principal institutions and mechanisms which have been developed by them. Section 5 provides a more detailed overview of torture and ill-treatment under the ECHR, in particular how it is handled through the Court's jurisprudence. Areas of complementarity and of tension in approaches to torture across the European systems and institutions are highlighted and examined in the discussion as they arise.