No successful account of the British constitution can now be confined to institutions, events or laws which are exclusively British. Over the past half century, as the constitutional importance of the Commonwealth has declined, so has the significance of ‘Europe’ grown and grown again. ‘Europe’, in this context, denotes two international organisations in particular: first, the Council of Europe and its European Convention on Human Rights and secondly the European Union. As was made clear in chapter 2 (see p 62), it is imperative not to confuse these two legal ‘Europes’ with one another. This is not least because the impact which each has had on the British constitution is different. In this chapter attention will first be given to the European Convention on Human Rights. We shall then go on to consider the nature and structure of the European Union and the impact of European Union membership and Community law on the United Kingdom.

European Convention on Human Rights

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is an international treaty made under the auspices of the Council of Europe, which is based in Strasbourg in eastern France. The United Kingdom was the first country to ratify the ECHR, in March 1951. The Convention came into force in 1953 and the European Court of Human Rights handed down its first judgment in 1961.