Preventing human rights violations in places of detention: a European initiative.

International human rights law defines certain fundamental freedoms which individuals should enjoy and proscribes a number of actions by the State or its agents, such as torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Its major defect is a lack of effective procedures by which individuals can file complaints and through which states can be condemned for violations. The [European] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has been ratified by over 30 European states and is commonly known as the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).1 It is remarkable not for the originality of the rights defined and protected but for its provisions, which are to a significant extent, enforceable by supranational legal procedures accessible to individuals as well as to states. Thus, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regularly finds that states have been parties to human rights violations, and obligates them to pay damages to individuals concerned. The ECtHR's decisions also oblige states to modify national legislation and to change procedures which they determine constitute human rights violations.