The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not only a human rights treaty, but a moral compass and a beacon of hope rooted in shared human values. It stands out as one of the great moral and juridical triumphs of the twentieth century.

For the first time in history, the world – through Europe – conceived a binding system in which the individual ceased to be an object of international law and became its principal subject. This transformation, embodied in the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), dismantled centuries of absolute sovereignty and introduced a new paradigm of accountability: one in which States are answerable before an international tribunal for human rights violations committed against their own citizens.

One of the most remarkable contributions of the ECHR has been to make the protection of human rights justiciable and enforceable beyond national borders. Through its jurisprudence, the ECtHR has breathed life into the principles of democracy and the rule of law, creating a culture of rights that has profoundly shaped Europe’s political and moral landscape.

Its influence also reached other regions. While the Inter-American System of Human Rights emerged from distinct historical and political contexts, the ECHR offered valuable lessons on how international law could operationalize the protection of individual rights. The European experience informed, rather than dictated, the Inter-American approach – one that would later develop its own identity through doctrines such as control of conventionality, the right to truth, and the pro homine principle.

Thus, the dialogue between both systems reflects not imitation but convergence, a tribute to a powerful idea: that States’ power must always be exercised within moral and legal limits, rooted in justice and human dignity, and respect for every person’s rights.

The living instrument: doctrinal renewal and interpretive resilience

A key to the system’s longevity lies in its interpretive philosophy. Since Tyrer v. the United Kingdom (1978), the Court stated that the Convention is a “living instrument” to be interpreted in light of present-day conditions. Far from creating new rights, this approach allowed the Court to uncover contemporary dimensions of rights already contained in the text. The Convention has thus remained anchored in its original framework while expanding its reach to encompass new realities.

This dynamic interpretation has allowed the Court to respond to societal change without losing legitimacy. Through doctrines such as proportionality, positive obligations, and the margin of appreciation, Strasbourg has managed to mediate between universality and pluralism, ensuring that rights protection evolves with democratic life rather than against it. The jurisprudence on environmental protection is illustrative: in Lopez Ostra v. Spain (1994), Fadeyeva v. Russia (2005), and Cordella v. Italy (2019), the Court read Article 8 – the right to private and family life – as encompassing protection from severe environmental harm, thereby linking individual well-being to ecological integrity.

This interpretive flexibility has allowed the ECHR to address challenges unimaginable to its drafters – mass surveillance (Big Brother Watch v. United Kingdom, 2021), algorithmic data processing, migration management, and gender-based violence – proving that the Convention, though born in 1950, remains responsive to twenty-first-century threats.

The Convention’s endurance owes as much to institutional reform as to doctrinal creativity. Protocol No. 11 (1998) abolished the Commission and opened the Court directly to individual petitions, democratizing access to justice. Protocol No. 14 (2010) introduced filtering mechanisms and pilot-judgment procedures (Broniowski v. Poland, 2004; Hutten-Czapska v. Poland, 2006), addressing systemic violations through structural remedies.

These reforms demonstrate that the ECHR’s vitality lies not in textual amendment but in institutional adaptability. The Court’s capacity to reform itself procedurally – while maintaining interpretive coherence – has prevented stagnation and preserved public confidence. Even under caseload pressure, it has remained an accessible guardian of legality, an achievement few international tribunals can match.

Crucially, its legitimacy rests on the collective enforcement mechanism of Article 46: the binding nature of judgments supervised by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. This political-legal interplay distinguishes Strasbourg from purely judicial bodies and underscores that human-rights protection is both a legal and a constitutional enterprise within Europe’s polity.

At the same time, the interpretive doctrine of the ECHR has radiated influence across continents. African institutions have adapted its reasoning to their own texts. The African Court and Commission frequently cite Strasbourg precedents on fair trial, expression, and association. The “triangulation” among Strasbourg, San José, and Arusha – strengthened through the 2018 San José and 2019 Kampala Declarations – has fostered methodological coherence while respecting textual diversity.

This cross-regional fertilization has yielded a transnational corpus of human-rights law. Concepts such as positive obligations, proportionality, and effective remedies have become global interpretive tools. For example, Strasbourg’s standards on privacy and surveillance (Szabó and Vissy v. Hungary, 2016; Big Brother Watch, 2021) have influenced judicial and legislative reforms from Latin America to Africa, embedding the principles of legality, necessity, and oversight in the global digital age.

Building on this global resonance, the experience of the ECtHR has found a particularly meaningful interlocutor in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). The dialogue between both tribunals has evolved into a relationship of influence and adaptation, marked by convergence in principles and divergence in methods. Rather than transplanting norms, the Inter-American system has reinterpreted the European legacy within its own constitutional and social realities, giving rise to a jurisprudence that mirrors Strasbourg’s commitment to effectiveness while expanding its scope to encompass collective and structural dimensions of human rights.

At a critical crossroads: challenges of compliance and global resonance

The ECtHR now stands at a critical crossroads, facing challenges that test both its institutional resilience and its moral authority. Among the most pressing are the following:

Democratic Backlash

A growing wave of populism and nationalism seeks to undermine the legitimacy of supranational adjudication. In several contexts, the authority of the Strasbourg Court, as well as other international courts, has been questioned in the name of “democratic sovereignty,” as if the protection of fundamental rights were somehow opposed to the will of the people. This tension reveals a deeper struggle between constitutionalism and majoritarianism – a challenge that cuts to the very core of the European project.

Legitimacy and Perception

The Court also faces critiques of “activism,” accusations of overreach, and claims that it is detached from national political realities. Such perceptions, as well as limited public awareness and declining trust in legal institutions, risk eroding its legitimacy.

To address these concerns, it is recommended that the ECtHR adopt new forms of communication, transparency, and outreach. Its authority cannot rest solely on the binding force of its judgments, but on their capacity to resonate with ordinary people. Strengthening dialogue with national courts, legislatures, and civil society is therefore essential to internalize Convention standards and ensure that the jurisprudence of Strasbourg becomes part of the domestic legal and cultural fabric of Europe.

Strasbourg’s inter-American dialogue: influence, adaptation, and convergence

As mentioned before, the influence of the ECtHR served as a major inspiration for the creation of other regional human rights systems – most notably, the IACtHR. Although Latin America’s social and historical contexts differ significantly – shaped by deep inequality, processes of transitional justice, and institutional fragility – the Inter-American system was nonetheless profoundly informed by the European model.

From its inception, the IACtHR drew heavily on Strasbourg. In Genie Lacayo v. Nicaragua (1997), it adopted the European Court’s criteria on “reasonable time” in judicial proceedings. Later, Campo Algodonero v. Mexico (2009) echoed Opuz v. Turkey (2009) in articulating State responsibility for gender-based violence. The recognition of sexual orientation as a protected category in Atala Riffo v. Chile (2012) paralleled Salgueiro da Silva Mouta v. Portugal (1999). Even in procedural design, the San José Court followed the European path: both systems grant individuals access to international adjudication and employ urgent protective measures (Rule 39 ECtHR; Article 63(2) ACHR).

Empirical data underscore this interaction: the Inter-American Court has cited Strasbourg jurisprudence in nearly 37 percent of its contentious cases and almost half of its advisory opinions. Yet this is not mechanical borrowing; it is principled cross-fertilization. Latin American judges have adapted European concepts – such as positive obligations or proportionality – to regional contexts of structural inequality, collective rights, and transitional justice.

The dialogue has thus been reciprocal, producing a pluralistic network of shared human-rights reasoning. In fact, several conditions have enabled fruitful judicial dialogue:

1. Shared normative foundations. Despite textual diversity, all regional systems are grounded in the universality and indivisibility of human dignity.
2. Institutionalized exchange. Regular regional human-rights courts dialogues, joint publications, and staff secondments have created predictable channels for cooperation.
3. Methodological clarity. Courts have increasingly specified how and why they cite foreign jurisprudence, avoiding superficial borrowing.
4. Balanced subsidiarity. Mutual respect for domestic and regional particularities sustains legitimacy.
5. Cross-referential learning. Europe has incorporated more structured compliance mechanisms inspired by the Inter-American system; conversely, San José has refined proportionality and reasonableness review drawing from Strasbourg precedents.

These elements transform what was once informal inspiration into a structured transnational judicial conversation.

Moreover, the ECtHR’s global impact derives not only from its jurisprudence but also from its method. Both the European and Inter-American Courts engage in comparative reasoning – canvassing domestic and international sources to identify consensus or evolving standards. Strasbourg routinely relies on comparative materials to calibrate the margin of appreciation, while San José has used regional consensus to legitimize evolutive interpretation, as in Lhaka Honhat v. Argentina (2020), which recognized the right to a healthy environment under Article 26 of the American Convention.

This comparative method ensures transparency and intellectual discipline in judicial reasoning. It also protects against accusations of activism by demonstrating that interpretive innovation rests on shared legal developments rather than judicial fiat. In this sense, “comparative human rights law” is not a separate field but an inherent dimension of international adjudication.

Toward a global judicial network

Looking forward, the ECtHR’s next decades will be shaped by its capacity to lead through dialogue rather than dominance. The goal is not a universal model, but a network of courts engaged in reciprocal learning. The 75th anniversary coincides with unprecedented global challenges – climate change, digital governance, mass displacement – that no regional system can tackle alone. Coordinated jurisprudential development, joint thematic reports, and open-access repositories of case law can enhance coherence without sacrificing diversity.

In this emerging landscape, the European Court’s responsibility is dual: to safeguard the integrity of its own system and to serve as a partner in global human-rights constitutionalism. Comparative humility – awareness that innovation also flows from San José, Arusha, and beyond – is essential. The Inter-American Court’s transformative reparations or the African system’s emphasis on collective rights illustrate that inspiration is no longer unidirectional.

The enduring message of the European Convention on Human Rights is that rights require institutions, justice demands access, and freedom without guarantees is fragile. Its moral inheritance has already transcended borders, inspiring constitutional transformations from Eastern Europe to Latin America and Africa. Each citation of Strasbourg by another court – each dialogue across regions – reaffirms the universality of human dignity within the plurality of contexts.

The Convention’s future, however, cannot rest solely on its past. It must continue to evolve through principled dynamism – faithful to the text yet responsive to new realities. Environmental degradation, digital surveillance, and democratic erosion are not peripheral concerns; they test the Convention’s very purpose. If the Court continues to interpret the Convention with fidelity and creativity, the system will remain not only relevant but indispensable.

Reaffirming dignity through law

Anniversaries invite remembrance, but also renewal. At seventy-five, the European Convention on Human Rights stands as both memory and promise: a monument to what international human rights law has achieved and a compass for what it must still become. Its story is one of resilience – of an instrument that has aged not with decay but with maturity, proving that moral commitments can be institutionalized and that institutions, if nurtured, can endure and embody hope.

As the Inter-American and African Courts, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and national judiciaries engage with Strasbourg in a web of mutual learning, the ECHR’s spirit endures as a beacon of justice and courage over despair. It reminds us that even in the darkest hours, humanity can reaffirm dignity through law – and that, perhaps, is the truest measure of its seventy-five years.