a kaleidoscope of people From the 10 founding states (Belgium, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, theUK, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) it has grown over the sixty years of its existence to 47 member states. The ECtHRis the most used and sophisticated regional system of supranational human rights adjudication.14 From 1998 on it has operated as a daily court, accessible to all who meet the admissibility criteria (ECHR Art. 35).15 With its 47 member states, which undertake to abide by its judgements, the ECtHRhas jurisdiction over 800 million people. Ranging from Andorra to Russia, from Norway to Azerbaijan, the vast geographical span of the court is impressive. According to the annual report in 2018 the ECtHR delivered 1,014 judgements, with a backlog of 56,350 pending applications. Each judge is elected from a member state for a non-renewable period of nine years (ECHR Art. 23 § 2): member states nominate three candidates, of whom one is selected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (ECHR Art. 22 § 1).16 The benches are recruited from the five sections, with a variety of geographical and legal backgrounds and a gender balance.17 The 47 judges who serve on theECtHR’s bench ‘shall be of high moral character and must either possess the qualifications required for appointment to high judicial office or be jurisconsults of recognized competence’ (ECHR Art. 21).18 Their individual biographies reveal very different career paths. Some judges had purely national judicial careers, never studying abroad; others had studied extensively overseas and are experts of international law and human rights 14 European Court of Human Rights, Annual Report 2018 of the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe 2019, 161, www.echr.coe.int. The ECtHRproduces constant case law that member states have to obey. 15 Protocol 11 entered into force on 1 November 1998. Individuals may claim to be a victim under the convention according toECHRArt. 34. Inter-state claims can be lodged according toECHRArt. 33. 16 European Court of Human Rights, s.v. ‘The Court’, Composition of the Court, 2020, www.echr.coe.int. 17 For the five sections, see European Court of Human Rights, s.v. ‘The Court’, Composition of the Court, 2020, www.echr.coe.int. 18 At the time of the bookThe Legal Culture of the European Court of Human Rights (Arold 2007) the ECtHRwas composed of 41 judges. For the current member states of the Council of Europe, see https://www.coe.int/en/web/about-us, s.v. ‘Our member States’. Samples of individual biographies are discussed in Arold 2007, 67 ff. 303
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=