Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

An intergovernmental consultative organization formed in May 1949 with headquarters at Strasbourg. Inspired by the congress of europe , it had as its founding members the five brussels treaty signatories, together with Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and Sweden. The Council was charged with promoting democracy and justice, and with protecting Europe's “common heritage.” Its organs included a committee of ministers and a consultative (later parliamentary) assembly, though without any binding executive or legislative authority. From the late-1950s onward the increasingly important european court [2] of Human Rights also developed under its auspices. Within the wider context of european integration , the Council remained formally separate from the institutions (and arguably the supranational ambitions) of the European Community or Union. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century there were nearly fifty members, including Russia and most of the other states in post-communist eastern Europe. ... log in or subscribe to read full text