Lecture by Ms Kristina Pencheva
Human Rights Cooperation and Awareness Division

By Nick Croggon

In 1998 the Council of Europe introduced reforms greatly reducing the role of the European Commission of Human Rights within the ECHR process, rendering largely useless the newly completed Chamber constructed specifically for its use. However, due to this lack of utility, the Chamber was able to serve as the striking venue for the presentation of Ms Kristina Pencheva, Programme Advisor of the Human Rights Cooperation and Awareness Division.

As Ms Pencheva explained, the role of the Division is of critical importance to the dispersion of human rights awareness among the 46 States which are members of the Council of Europe. While the task of protecting and upholding human rights essentially falls on the national authorities of the various member states, Ms Pencheva's Division aims to aid these national authorities as well as other relevant legal bodies to strengthen domestic human rights awareness. While the scope of the Division's work is wide-reaching, its primary focus is upon Member States in which the democratic tradition is weaker. This focus tends to draw the Division's resources to newer Member States, such as Moldova and Russia, although older Member States such as Turkey have proven to require ongoing attention. As Ms Pencheva pointed out, however, the resources of the Division are limited, and the Division must take care to select only the States most in need of its expertise.

One method utilized by the Division for affecting awareness of human rights is the implementation of educational programs. These can stretch from long training courses to short 2-day primers, and aim to inform members of national authorities (such as the police and members of the legal profession) in areas such as the concept of human rights, the content of the Convention, and the interpretations of the Convention given by the Court. Ms Pencheva deemed the outcomes of these programs largely positive; whether it be merely piquing an interest in human rights, or by encouraging individuals to return to the Court with a human rights case of their own. Looking a few years into the future, a long term goal of the Division is to establish effective national agencies for such legal training.

For Ms Pencheva, central to the dispersal of human rights awareness in Europe is integration. For example, in her work educating police forces, Ms Pencheva has found that human rights issues must be integrated into the existing training programs rather than being treated separately. Thus it is emphasized that human rights plays a critical, and non-severable, part of the legal structure.

Yet the duties of the Division stretch beyond legal training. The Division is involved in such diverse activities as translation of case-law, media work, issues of compatibility between national legislation and human rights law, and, more recently, the presence of human rights on the Web.

Although, thanks to the 1998 reforms, a large portion of the European Court of Human Rights' new headquarters in Strasbourg remains largely unused, Ms Pencheva's presentation revealed that activity under the banner of the European Convention of Human Rights is more extensive and wide-ranging than ever before.