The Council of Europe is not an EU institution. It is a separate international organisation of 46 European countries, founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, that defends human rights, democracy and the rule of law, notably through the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.
- Acronym
- CoE
- Seat
- Strasbourg, France
- Established
- 5 May 1949 (Statute signed in London by ten states)
- Members
- 46 member states, including all 27 EU countries; the European Court of Human Rights has one judge per member state
- Head
- Alain Berset, Secretary General since 18 September 2024
- Legal basis
- Statute of the Council of Europe (1949); European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
The Council of Europe is often confused with two EU bodies with similar names: the European Council (the summit of EU leaders) and the Council of the European Union (EU ministers). It has nothing to do with either. It is an older and wider organisation, created on 5 May 1949, when ten countries signed its Statute in London: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It now has 46 member states, including every EU country but also, for example, the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye and Ukraine.
The Council of Europe does not make laws that apply directly in its member states. It works through conventions, international treaties that countries choose to sign and ratify. The most important is the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 and in force since 3 September 1953. It protects rights such as the right to life, the ban on torture, the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression and respect for private and family life.
Its main bodies are the Committee of Ministers (the foreign ministers of the member states), the Parliamentary Assembly (members of national parliaments) and the Secretary General, elected by the Assembly for five years. The European Court of Human Rights, also in Strasbourg, has one judge per member state, elected by the Parliamentary Assembly for a single nine-year term. Anyone who believes a member state has violated their Convention rights can bring a case, once national remedies are exhausted. States have committed to abide by the Court’s final judgments, and the Committee of Ministers supervises their execution.
Russia was expelled on 16 March 2022, after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which brought membership from 47 to 46.
Example
On 9 April 2024, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland that Switzerland had violated the Convention by failing to take sufficient measures against climate change. The same day, it declared two other climate cases, against France and against Portugal and 32 other states, inadmissible.
Debates and limits
The Court’s reach is debated. Some governments argue that its case law limits their ability to control migration and expel foreign nationals. On 15 May 2026, the foreign ministers of the 46 member states adopted the Chișinău Declaration on the Convention and migration, which reaffirms their commitment to the Court while stressing that national authorities have primary responsibility for applying Convention rights.
The EU itself is not a party to the Convention. The EU treaties require it to join, but the Court of Justice of the EU rejected a first draft accession agreement in December 2014. A revised text was agreed at technical level in 2023, and accession has not been completed.