Wolfson conference hosts Council of Europe Secretary General

Wolfson Vicegerent Professor Denis Galligan chaired the panel at which Professor Deighton laid out the historical context of the Cold War against which the CoE founding convention - the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - was developed, as well as the relationship of the ECHR to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has thus far received little academic scrutiny.

Manuel Lezertua, Director of Legal Advice at the CoE, then charted the adoption of over 200 conventions by the CoE, and the recent critical review of these commissioned by the Secretary General to improve the visibility, impact, and number of parties to these conventions. The momentum behind the CoE's norm production was then explored by Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, who identified its ability to foster normative coherence through an innovative and flexible approach.

After lunch, Dr Kundai Sithole from Wolfson College described her research into the CoE in relation to the death penalty, questioning whether moves towards the international norm of abolishment was originating from the Parliamentary Assembly within the CoE, or from within the member states themselves.

Professor Rainer Hofmann from the CoE gave an insight into the implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which emerged in 1993 in reaction to the war in the then Yugoslavia, describing the aims of managing majority/minority relations in member states in order to avoid similar regional instability in future.