Monument to Human Rights outside the Council of Europe, Strasbourg. Wikicommons/ EPei. Some rights reserved.Especially in Britain given our intended imminent departure from the EU, it is clear that the Council of Europe has crucial significance to our continent and indeed the world. Founded as far back as 1949 and with 47 Member States with over 800 million people, it focuses on some of the most difficult and controversial issues concerning human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Whilst best known for the European Convention on Human Rights, it has actually concluded hundreds of binding legal Conventions and carried out scores of cooperative programmes in areas as diverse as minority rights, children’s rights, the preservation of environmental and cultural heritage, media policy, data protection and the fight against cybercrime.
Such broad and critical activity comes with a deep responsibility, not least to be transparent in its operations to Europe’s citizens. Moreover, as the Council of Europe itself has repeatedly emphasised, enabling access as of right to archived records of consultation and decision-making constitutes a core and essential aspect of such transparency.
