The Quest for Democratic Security: Peaceworks: Publications: U.S. Institute of Peace

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January 1999

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The Quest for Democratic Security The Role of the Council of Europe and U.S. Foreign Policy

Notes

1. For a more detailed discussion of this question, see Heinrich Klebes, “Wertegemeinschaft oder Schule der Demokratie?” in Scritti in Onore di Giuseppe Vedovato (Florence: Biblioteca della Rivista di Studi Politici, 1997).

2. For a review of this literature, see, for example, Bruce M. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post–Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

3. The term “state,” as used in this study, refers to sovereign entities under international law and not to states as part of a federation. “Government” and “governmental” refer to the executive branch of government only.

4. This process continued at subsequent CSCE follow-up meetings and then at OSCE conferences where the Council of Europe was represented as a “Guest” (only sovereign states are full partners in the CSCE/OSCE process) whenever matters related to democracy and human rights were discussed. The role of the Council of Europe was underlined in the Paris Charter for a New Europe, which heralded the official end to the Cold War, adopted by the CSCE Summit in Paris in November 1991.

5. For NATO, this has not always been the case. Until the mid-1970s it counted a dictatorship (Portugal) among its members. Concerning OSCE, notwithstanding its important work for democratic reform and human rights, it still includes quasi-authoritarian regimes in Central Asia.

6. The overall effectiveness of the conventions network merits a critical appraisal, yet it is difficult to assess. Council of Europe conventions are classical international treaties, though elaborated in the framework of an international organization (see Article 5 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties). To enter into force, a convention must be signed and ratified by a (variable) number of states. However, states may make reservations to the convention, and unless ratified by all, it is not a common law for all member states. These conditions clearly mark a weakness in comparison with EU law.

7. Churchill alternately used the terms Council of Europe, European Union, and United States of Europe. The latter, it seems, was meant to be the final stage. For the text of the speech and the general context, see Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert R. James (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), 7379–82. For a brilliant historical study of the balance of power concept, see Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).

8. See Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter.

9. See appendix 1 for the evolution of membership until March 31, 1998.

10. Of the Council of Europe’s various bodies, only the parliamentary organ now holds economic debates. Under agreements with the institutions concerned, and with the participation of parliamentary delegations from the interested nonmember states, it functions as a parliamentary forum for OECD and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Examples of Council of Europe conventions concerning economic matters include two conventions on the law of patents for inventions (European Treaty Series [hereafter, ETS] 17 and 44), the “management” of which was subsequently transferred to the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva; the European Convention on Establishment (ETS 19); the European Convention on Compulsory Insurance against Civil Liability in Respect of Motor Vehicles (ETS 29); Convention on the Liability of Hotel-Keepers (ETS 41); Convention on the European Pharmacopoeia (ETS 50); Convention on a Uniform Law on Arbitration (ETS 56); Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (ETS 127); Convention on Insider Trading and Protocol (ETS 130 and 133), prepared in collaboration with OECD; and Convention on Money Laundering (ETS 141). The European Community has become a party to some of the above and other conventions by reason of the progressive transfer of competencies from EC member states to the community. Apart from the areas covered in this study, the Council of Europe’s activities include culture and education, the environment, legal affairs, social affairs (for example, social security, the fight against drugs), and so forth.

11. The European Commission is expected to open membership negotiations with Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Estonia in 1998.

12. Preambles set the tone of a treaty, describe its object and purpose, and serve to interpret—if necessary—operative provisions. See the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 31.

13. The words “within its jurisdiction” are important. They mean that the protection of their human rights is not only available to nationals of member states, but also to nationals of third states. U.S. citizens who consider that their rights (as defined in the convention) have been violated in a Council of Europe member state can, having exhausted available national remedies in the states concerned, turn to the European Commission of Human Rights in the first instance and, following the entering into force of Protocol No. 11, direct to the permanent Court of Human Rights, which will begin functioning on November 1, 1998.

14. Compare this provision with section I, para. 5.1 of CSCE’s Copenhagen Document. A colloquy organized by the Association of French Constitutionalists on March 21, 1997 in Paris discussed the question, in the light of the ECHR, if states were still free to determine their electoral law. A summary of the report presented by J. F. Flauss appeared in Revue française de droit constitutionnel, vol. 30 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997), 387–97.

15. In Greece, a group of colonels seized power in April 1967 and made repeated promises to return the country to democratic rule through free elections; yet the promises were not fulfilled. In December 1969, the council’s Committee of Ministers was at the point of voting a resolution requesting Greece to withdraw from the organization. In response, Foreign Minister Pipinelis submitted letters to the committee denouncing the Council of Europe Statute and the ECHR. Greece was readmitted in 1974 after the downfall of the military junta. Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus’s northern region continues to be a threat to regional stability, involving two NATO allies and three members of the Council of Europe.

16. The text of the convention (ETS 5) and the additional protocols can be obtained from the Council of Europe. For an overview of existing international documents on human rights, see Thomas Buergenthal, International Human Rights (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1995). Contrary to the European Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission of the Organization of American States can investigate the human rights situation in member countries on its own initiative (that is, it need not wait until there is a specific human rights violation), and it has developed the habit of preparing country studies.

17. If national proceedings become too protracted, the Commission and Court of Human Rights could take up a case before a final judgment on appeal if the length of proceedings in fact constitutes a denial of justice. On the jurisdiction of the court and commission, see J. G. Merrills, The Development of International Law by the European Court of Human Rights (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1995), and Donna Gomien, David Harris, and Leo Zwaak, Law and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1996).

18. Though torture is forbidden under Article 3 of the ECHR, it was considered necessary to conclude this separate convention (ETS 126) because the Commission and the Court of Human Rights could only react to complaints and could not initiate action.

19. Compare the council’s convention with the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Its Committee on Torture can also investigate on a state’s territory, but only with that state’s consent. See Buergenthal, International Human Rights, 72–76.

20. The text and explanatory memorandum on the Framework Convention (ETS 157), together with a commentary by this author, can be found in Human Rights Law Journal 16 (1995): 92. It also can be found in Florence Benoît-Rohmer, The Minority Question in Europe, Texts and Commentary (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1996), a collection of texts on minority rights sponsored by the International Institute for Democracy.

21. See the penultimate paragraph of the report’s section II.

22. Following its entry into force, the convention’s Protocol No. 11 will establish only a court, to be constituted on November 1, 1998. The optional character of Articles 25 and 46 concerning the right of individual petition and the jurisdiction of the court disappeared. The same goes for the subsidiary judicial functions of the Committee of Ministers. Under the old system, a report of the commission on an alleged human rights violation would go to the Committee of Ministers for decision if one of the parties concerned, or the commission, had not made a request of the court within three months. Obviously, this was not a satisfactory solution, as the Committee of Ministers is a political body and not “an independent and impartial tribunal” in the meaning of the convention’s Article 6. However, the committee appropriately retains its responsibility for supervising the execution of court decisions.

23. Concerning the two latter treaties, the relevant provisions will be found in Articles 15 and 16, respectively. Hungary insisted on references in the treaties to texts to be considered legally binding between the parties. These included not only relevant OSCE and UN texts but also Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1201 for an additional protocol to the ECHR. The latter contained a paragraph 11 on the right of persons belonging to national minorities to “local or autonomous authorities or . . . a special status.” This was unacceptable to both Slovakia and Romania. The matter was solved by a unilateral interpretative declaration by Slovakia and an agreed footnote in the treaty between Hungary and Romania. The Committee of Ministers did not follow up on Recommendation 1201. Instead, the 1993 Vienna Summit agreed on the preparation of a Framework Convention. For more details, see Heinrich Klebes, “The European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities,” Human Rights Law Journal 16, nos. 1–3 (April 1995).

24. See Assembly Opinions 174 on the Czech Republic, 175 on Slovakia, and 176 on Romania. It is interesting, however, that a similar clause was not included in Opinion 182 on Andorra, the last West European newcomer to the Council of Europe (November 10, 1993).

25. See Heinrich Klebes, “La convention-cadre du Conseil de l’Europe pour la protection des minorités nationales—deux ans après son ouverture à la signature des Etats,” Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme, no. 30 (April 1997).

26. All member states of the EU and all European members of NATO are also Council of Europe members, and all council states are members of OSCE. Certainly, this is not to suggest that European democracy is different in essence from the American and other major democracies in the world. There has been a long cross-fertilization, particularly between European and North American thinking on democracy, and the fundamental beliefs are the same. The founders of American democracy drew on European thinkers and, in turn, strongly influenced political thinking in Europe.

27. The conference was organized by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the European Parliament and the parliaments of the major non-European democracies of the time (namely, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan).

28. Some observers objected that this protection applied only partially to presidential forms of government. See the more precise wording of the CSCE Copenhagen Document of June 1990 (section I, 5.2) stipulating “a form of government, in which the executive is accountable to the elected legislature or the electorate.”

29. The general ideas behind this and two subsequent Strasbourg Conferences (in 1987 and 1991) were the reinforcement of links between existing democracies in different continents, an idea in fact first proposed in the United States by the Committee for a Community of Democracies (see James R. Huntley, Uniting the Democracies: Institutions of the Emerging Atlantic-Pacific System [New York: New York University Press, 1980]); citizens’ participation in and education for democracy; and specific problems of emerging and Third World democracies (illiteracy, economic underdevelopment, tribalism, and so on). Reports of the conferences have been published by the Council of Europe. The report on the second conference was also reproduced in the Human Rights Law Journal 9 (1988): 365, together with a general description of the Strasbourg conference system and the text of the Strasbourg Consensus. Regional seminars were held in between conferences in Central America, Africa, and the Far East. After 1991, the conference series was suspended because democratic reform in Central and Eastern Europe was the main preoccupation.

30. See Assembly Opinion 153.

31. See Opinion 155.

32. See Opinion 154.

33. See Opinion 161.

34. Indeed, Slovenia is among those former communist members whose transition to democracy posed very few problems. On these three countries’ admission, see Opinions 168, 169, and 170, respectively.

35. For more details, see the report of the Political Affairs Committee, Doc. 6787.

36. See Opinions 174 and 175.

37. When the Committee of Ministers meets at ministers’ deputies level, unanimity is required. Ministers themselves can decide with a two-thirds majority.

38. In the context of NATO enlargement, Defense Secretary Cohen said, “A good deal of progress has been made in a short time, but it is still a short time, and there needs to be a longer-term commitment to the progress that has been made in terms of democracy, civilian control over the military and the emphasis on human rights.” New York Times, June 13, 1997.

39. See Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1997.

40. Well informed as he was, Ambassador Deriabin was no doubt aware that the convention is not open to nonmember countries.

41. Compare Churchill’s position in 1946 with current Western policy regarding Russia’s relationship with NATO.

42. See council document AS/Bur/Russie (1994), “Report on the conformity of the legal order of the Russian Federation with Council of Europe standards,” prepared by Rudolf Bernhardt, Stefan Trechsel, Albert Weitzel, and Felix Ermacora.

43. For a more thorough study of the history of Russia’s admission to the Council of Europe, see Despina Chatzivassiliou, “L’admission de la Russe au Conseil de l’Europe” in Catherine Schneider, ed., Le Conseil de l’Europe, acteur de la recomposition du territoire européen (Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1997).

44. See Resolution 1089 of May 29, 1996.

45. It is interesting, however, that Gret Haller, a former member of the Parliamentary Assembly and former Swiss ambassador to the Council of Europe, who was appointed human rights ombudsperson by OSCE under the Dayton Agreement, said on June 26, 1997 in Strasbourg that the admission procedure for Bosnia should be accelerated because it would promote the pace of democratization and pacification. See Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 27, 1997.

46. Council of Europe Statute, Article 1.

47. See appendix 1. The issue of sovereignty had played a part in the debates on the admission of Liechtenstein and San Marino. In both cases, the question was whether these very small states were economically (and thus politically) dependent on Switzerland and Italy, respectively. Monaco, though a member of other international organizations, including OSCE, has never applied for Council of Europe membership, no doubt owing to its awareness of the debates surrounding the admission of Liechtenstein and San Marino. Under the treaty between Monaco and France, the prince must choose the head of government from a list of three candidates proposed by France.

48. Council of Europe, Doc. AS/Pol (1995) 6.

49. It should be recalled that, for a time, the United States government was seriously preoccupied with the eventuality of a rapprochement of Portugal with the Soviet Union. One of the ablest American diplomats, Frank Carlucci, was posted to Lisbon at the time.

50. The council adopted the term “special guest status,” since observer status (with the assembly) already existed and had been granted to parliaments of Western states that later also became full members. At present, the only state to enjoy assembly observer status (not to be confused with the observer status with the council as such) is Israel, which, however, cannot become a full member because it is not a European state in the meaning of the statute (that is, situated on the European continent).

51. The ECHR is not mentioned in Rule 55a, because the convention is open to member states only.

52. See Resolution 917.

53. See Heinrich Klebes, “Draft Protocol on Minority Rights to the ECHR,” Human Rights Law Journal 14 (1993): 142.

54. See notably Opinions 175 (1993) on Slovenia, 176 (1993) on Romania, 182 (1994) on Andorra, 183 (1995) on Latvia, 188 (1995) on Moldova, 189 (1995) on Albania, 190 (1995) on Ukraine, 191 (1995) on Macedonia, 193 (1996) on Russia, and 195 (1996) on Croatia.

55. See his interview in Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, June 26, 1997; and Joel Blocker, “Council of Europe’s Soft Standards for East European Members,” RFE/RL Newsline, July 7, 1997.

56. See “Activities for the Development and Consolidation of Democratic Stability (ADACS), Programme for 1998,” Doc. SG/INF (98) 2.

57. For a general overview, see Diana Pinto, From Assistance to Democracy to Democratic Security: Co-operation and Assistance Programs for Central and Eastern Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1995); and her chapter, “Assisting Central and Eastern Europe’s Transformation,” in The Challenges of a Greater Europe: The Council of Europe and Democratic Security (Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing, 1996).

58. Established in 1994 under Committee of Ministers Resolution (94)3.

59. In 1997, the Council of Europe conducted or participated in close to 800 activities, including seminars or conferences, study visits, training programs, expert missions, and legislative advice. Among these, 135 concerned Russia, 86 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 77 Ukraine. Some are organized in cooperation with other international institutions, particularly the EU and the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Thus, there are several joint ventures with the EU concerning Russia. For details, see Assistance with the Development and Consolidation of Democratic Security: Cooperation and Assistance Programmes with Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Annual Reports 1996 and 1997 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Directorate of Political Affairs, 1997 and 1998) and Assistance with the Development and Consolidation of Democratic Security: Co-operation and Assistance Programmes with Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Programme for 1997 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Directorate of Political Affairs, 1997).

60. For a detailed overview of all cooperation and assistance projects, see the above-mentioned annual reports and program produced by the Directorate of Political Affairs.

61. As already mentioned, similar advice was given to Latvia in cooperation with OSCE.

62. Mention should be made here of international judicial conferences organized by the Washington D.C.-based Center for Democracy in cooperation with the Council of Europe. Problems concerning the judiciary, and particularly its independence, have been debated by judges of Courts of Ultimate Appeal from America and Europe during all six of the conferences that have taken place so far.

63. The Venice Commission was created under a so-called Partial Agreement open to nonmember states; see Committee of Ministers’ Resolution (93)38. It consists of distinguished individuals nominated by their respective governments, but acting as independent experts. All member states of the Council of Europe (excluding the United Kingdom and Andorra) participate in and contribute to the commission; many other states have associate, observer, or special status for cooperation with the commission. The U.S. representative is an observer.

64. The Venice Commission also produced a draft convention on the protection of minority rights intended to be open to the signature of nonmember states. In legal terms, it was halfway between the assembly’s strictly worded Draft Protocol to the ECHR and the less stringent Framework Convention adopted by the Committee of Ministers. For this and other texts produced by the commission, see “The Protection of Minorities” in Science and Technique of Democracy, vol. 9 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1993). After the Vienna Summit, the Venice Commission’s proposal was referred by the Committee of Ministers to the government experts charged with drafting the Framework Convention.

65. Compare the EU’s activities devoted to “civil society and democratization.” From 1990 to 1995, the EU spent an annual average of 9.1 million ECUs (approximately $10.98 million) in its PHARE program devoted to these activities; the EU’s total budget was 5,416.9 million ECUs during that period. See European Commission: The Phare Programme Annual Report 1995 (Brussels: European Commission, 1996).

66. Under Resolution 1115, approved in January 1997, there is a single, specialized committee to monitor obligations.

67. The bureau consists of the president, eighteen vice presidents, and the leaders of the five political groups in the assembly. Especially because of the presence of the latter, the bureau wields considerable influence.

68. For its first year of activity, the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member-States, established in January 1997, presented a report (April 1997 to April 1998) to the April 1998 part-session of the assembly. See ADOC 8057 (1998).

69. The text of the declaration is reproduced in Assembly Document 7277 of April 10, 1995.

70. See Opinion 170 (1993) on the admission of Estonia to the Council of Europe and appendix 1 of ADOC 7715.

71. Doc. 7080, Add. IV in May 1994, AS/Jur (1995) 29 in September 1995, and ADOC 7715 in December 1996. On the honoring of Estonia’s commitments, see also Rudolf Bindig and Tanja Kleinsorge, “Monitoring the Compliance of Member States with Obligations and Commitments: The Case of Estonia” in Bruno Haller, Hans-Christian Krueger, and Herbert Petzold, eds., Law in Greater Europe—Towards a Common Legal Space. Collection of Studies to Honour Heinrich Klebes (New York: Kluwer Law International, forthcoming).

72. See Assembly Resolution 1117 (1997) of January 30, 1997.

73. Naturalization requires knowledge of the Estonian language and constitution, as well as five years’ residence.

74. Joint Memorandum AS/Jur (1994) 23–AS/Pol (1994) 18.

75. Memorandum AS/Jur (1996) 19.

76. AS/Jur (1996) 57.

77. Doc. 7795 of April 11, 1997.

78. Ibid., 13.

79. Homosexuality is an extremely sensitive issue in Romania, given the inveterate hostility against homosexuals by a large majority of the Romanian population and the Romanian Orthodox Church. Reform of the law is, therefore, not an easy matter for either the executive or the country’s parliament. Thus, Romanian parliamentarians complained to the author that they had been attacked in the street for having spoken on behalf of reform in the National Assembly.

80. After the Soviet Union’s dissolution, the KGB (Committee for State Security) has been replaced by the following intelligence and security agencies in Russia: the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Presidential Security Service (SBP), and the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI).

81. AS/Jur (1997) 13, to be declassified following receipt of the Russian delegation’s comments.

82. See the draft opinion AS/Pol (1997) 17, produced by the Political Affairs Committee concerning the difficulties Russia faces in tackling the problems addressed by the council.

83. In fact, some evidence exists that conditions have deteriorated since accession. It has been reported that prisoners sentenced to death have refused to ask for a presidential reprieve, which President Yeltsin promised to grant whenever requested. Apparently, the prisoners preferred execution to a life sentence in a Russian prison. See the article by Allesandra Stanley, “Russians Lament the Crime of Punishment,” New York Times, January 8, 1998, and the 1998 Report of Amnesty International (London: AI International Publications, 1998); see also the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1998.

84. See “Russian Federation—A Review of the Compliance of the Russian Federation with Council of Europe Commitments and Other Human Rights Obligations on the First Anniversary of its Accession to the Council of Europe,” Human Rights Watch/Helsinki 9, no. 3 (February 1997).

85. Interfax, August 4, 1998.

86. AS/Pol (1997) 17.

87. From the perspective of a unified Europe stretching over the entire continent, it is appropriate to recall that Marshall Plan aid was also offered to the eastern part of Europe—but refused on orders from Moscow. Soviet leaders were determined to keep any “imperialist” influences from penetrating the Iron Curtain.

88. Before 1989, political literature and even international legal texts in the Soviet empire depicted the Council of Europe as a “prolonged arm of NATO,” intended to undermine socialist society through “offers of technical cooperation.” In this sense, see Völkerrecht (Berlin: Staatsver lag der DDR, 1983).

89. See AS (1997) CR6, minutes of the January 30, 1997 Parliamentary Assembly session.

90. The State Department’s position was confirmed in Under Secretary Strobe Talbott’s address to the U.S.-EU Conference, “Bridging the Atlantic,” on May 6, 1997 in Washington, D.C. See also the special report, Managing NATO Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, April 1997), and David S. Yost, NATO Transformed: The Alliance’s New Roles in International Security (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1998).

91. See Yost, NATO Transformed.

92. Hans Peter Furrer and Jutta Gützkow, “The Concept of Democratic Security and its Implementation by the Council of Europe,” Romanian Journal of International Affairs 2 (March 1996): 14.

93. On this point, Moscow was in agreement with its allies at the time, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, which had been able to gain or regain territory as a consequence of Germany’s defeat. For Poland this was crucial because it had been forced to cede territory in the east to the Soviet Union.

94. When former Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzki went to Tirana on behalf of the OSCE, one of his advisors was the Council of Europe’s director of political affairs. Catherine Lalumière, former Council of Europe secretary general and now a member of the European Parliament, was appointed by the OSCE to act as coordinator for observing Albania’s June 29, 1997 general elections.

95. Frederick Quinn, You and Human Rights: Basic United Nations, Council of Europe, and OSCE Human Rights Documents (Warsaw: OSCE, forthcoming). Apart from the ECHR, the manual includes references to the European Social Charter, the Convention for the Prevention of Torture, the Declaration Regarding Intolerance, the Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Information, the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to Member States Regarding Conscientious Objection to Compulsory Military Service, the Declaration on Equality of Women and Men, and the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly on the Declaration on the Police.

96. Membership is largely identical as far as European states are concerned. The following OSCE states are not members of the Council of Europe: Canada and the United States; Monaco and the Holy See; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia; Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; and Yugoslavia (suspended from participation in OSCE’s activities since July 8, 1992).

97. Buergenthal, International Human Rights, 173.

98. See the OSCE’s Helsinki decision of July 10, 1992, section II (3), concerning the creation of the post of High Commissioner on National Minorities.

99. On the subject of the significance of moral forces and ideas in international relations, see John Norton Moore, “Morality and the Rule of Law in the Foreign Policy of Democracies” in W. H. Taitte, ed., Morality and Expediency in International Corporations, The Andrew R. Cecil Lecture on Moral Values in a Free Society, vol. 13 (Dallas: University of Texas Press, 1992).

100. New York Times, June 18, 1997.

101. The United States has acceded to the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons (ETS 112) and the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (ETS 127). Regular contacts have been established between European and inter-American human rights institutions. As Professor Buergenthal pointed out during a conference at the Federal Judicial Center on April 24, 1997, the Inter-American Court and Commission of Human Rights have essentially been modeled on the court and commission established under the Council of Europe’s ECHR.

102. Observer status with the council as such should not be confused with observer status in expert committees or with the assembly.

103. While the Committee of Ministers meetings are private, it is not a secret that the opposing state was France. In fact, bilateral discussions took place at the time between France and the United States with a view to finding a solution.

104. See Recommendation 1282, adopted on January 10, 1996.

105. In principle, the composition of the Parliamentary Assembly is determined democratically. The number of seats for each delegation depends on the country’s population. There are two exceptions. One, there is a political agreement that no state should have more than eighteen seats in the assembly (plus eighteen alternates); this exception was expressly accepted by Russia. Two, at the other end of the scale, every state is given “2 + 2” seats to ensure that the opposition is always represented. (The assembly does not approve the credentials of delegations that do not reflect the composition of the nation’s legislature.) In proportional terms, this means that one of the very small member states may be several hundred times as heavily represented as a big member state. Refer to the debate on proportional representation as it was differently understood in the United States and Europe during the Philadelphia Convention; see Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier, Decision in Philadelphia—The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (Washington, D.C.: Ballantine Books, 1987).

106. Different models of democracy also exist in Europe. On the fundamental democratic consensus, see the Strasbourg Consensus.

107. See appendix 3.

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