While hugely important in setting a global standard for the first time, the declaration was essentially aspirational, and had no judicial enforcement mechanism.

The court was established on 21 January 1959 on the basis of Article 19 of the European Convention on Human Rights when its first members were elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

On 1 November 1998, the court became a full-time institution and the European Commission of Human Rights, which used to decide on admissibility of applications, was abolished by Protocol 11.

[16][17] The accession of new states to the European Convention on Human Rights following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led to a sharp increase in applications filed in the court.

Protocol 11 was designed to deal with the backlog of pending cases by establishing the court and its judges as a full-time institution, by simplifying the procedure and reducing the length of proceedings.

However, as the workload of the court continued to increase, the contracting states agreed that further reforms were necessary and in May 2004, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers adopted Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Each judge is elected by majority vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from among three candidates nominated by each contracting state.

[16] The European Court of Human Rights is assisted by a registry made up of around 640 agents, of which a little less than half of lawyers divided into 31 sections.

The jurisdiction of the court is generally divided into inter-state cases, applications by individuals against contracting states, and advisory opinions in accordance with Protocol No.2.

[16] Since 2018, member states can similarly request advisory opinions on questions of principle concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, on the basis of Protocol No.

[28] Unlike preliminary references under EU law, advisory opinions may only be solicited by the "highest courts and tribunals" of a member state.

16 states that "Advisory opinions shall not be binding," they nonetheless enter the ECtHR's case law and may be enforced through later individual complaints if contravened.

[31] This condition is the consequence of the subsidiary jurisdiction of the supranational court, which monitors the application of the convention and seeks to eradicate human rights violations.

"[33] Interim measures are binding and afford litigants temporary protections on an expedited basis, although the ECtHR has chosen to only impose them in cases concerning imminent danger to life and limb.

[37][38][39][40] In Mamatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey (2008), the court emphasized that it "upholds individual rights as practical and effective, rather than theoretical and illusory protections".

[42] One area that the living instrument doctrine has changed ECtHR jurisprudence over time is with regard to differential treatment exclusively based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, which it is increasingly likely to label unjustified discrimination.

[45][46] Although defenders argue that living instrument doctrine is necessary for the court to stay relevant and its rulings to adapt to the actual conditions, such interpretations are labeled overreach or judicial activism by critics.

[37][39][47] The Court uses the doctrine of margin of appreciation, referring to the member states' rights to set moral standards within reason.

[52] However, the margin of appreciation doctrine has also come under sharp criticism from jurists and academics who say that it undermines the universal nature of human rights.

The guarantees of ECHR Articles 8, 9, 10, and 11 are subject to whatever limitations may be "necessary in a democratic society," citing factors including national security, public safety, health and morals, and the rights and freedoms of others.

Critics maintain that proportionality engenders largely subjective rulings: a judge's personal preferences and beliefs may color their perceptions of rights' relative importance.

However, since all EU states are members of the Council of Europe and so are parties of the Convention on Human Rights, there are concerns about consistency in case law between the two courts.

[54] Despite the European Union's failure to accede to the Convention, the ECtHR has consistently held that member states are bound by ECHR guarantees even when executing and implementing EU law.

Because the CJEU represents a "comparable" human rights enforcement mechanism, the ECtHR may presume "that a State has not departed from the requirements of the Convention when it does no more than implement legal obligations flowing from its [EU] membership.

[57] According to a 2012 study, the ECTtHR tends to justify its decisions with citations to its own case law in order to convince national courts to accept its rulings.

(In March 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a history of disregard for the principles of the Convention, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe.)

[65][5][6] According to Michael Goldhaber in A People's History of the European Court of Human Rights, "Scholars invariably describe it with superlatives".

[70][71] Although all damages must be paid to the applicant within the time frame specified by the court (usually three months) or else will accumulate interest, there is no formal deadline for any more complex compliance required by the judgement.

[73] Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, stated: "Our work is based on cooperation and good faith.

[86] As a result of Protocol 14 reforms to reduce caseload, single judges were empowered to reject applications as inadmissible and a system of "pilot judgements" was created to handle repetitive cases without a formal finding for each one.