IndexDelimitationTheoretical frameworkNegotiation of the European ConventionThe state of progress of the ConventionThe concept of the European UnionThe Charter of Fundamental RightsThe contribution examines the evolution of human rights in Europe since 1949 carefully analyzing the role of the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU) in the development and advancement of human rights in the region. Guided by a research question and a hypothesis, the research paper is divided into seven sections. The first section provides basic information on human rights to explain the emergence of the concept before 1949. After the delimitation of the topic, the paper presents the problem statement to show the importance of this research. In light of the theoretical framework as a backdrop for a better understanding of human rights, the work considers the origin of the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) and discusses the slow progress it has made over time. In this context, the document outlines the EU's role in the development of human rights by offering an analysis of EU human rights jurisprudence and its impact on the protection of human rights. The final section provides a concluding statement that supports the hypothesis. The findings suggest that the European focus on human rights strengthened after the Second World War with the help of the Council of Europe creating a Human Rights Convention and the EU. Finally, the work concludes that the EU itself did not promote human rights because it was initially established for economic purposes, but it protects human rights through the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Development of European human rightsSay ​​no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The concept of human rights emerged as a result of the philosophical debate that raged two thousand years ago in the European states. However, the first precursor to the development of fundamental human rights is found in the Babylonian laws and notions of natural rights developed by classical Greek philosophers. The phenomenon can also be traced back to the Magna Carta signed at Runnymede in June 1215 which allowed the British barons of medieval England to force the reluctant King John to recognize the great charter. Under the influence of John Locke, in the 1690s, natural laws evolved into the natural rights of individuals based on human nature. To popularize the advantages of England's unwritten constitution, the French political philosopher Montesquieu further led the advancement of human rights in 1748. Furthermore, Jean-Jacques Rousseau proclaimed the revolutionary potential of human rights in 1762 by arguing that rights can be both restrictive and liberating (Maringele, 2015). In 1789 Europe recognized and proclaimed the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. Today, almost all national constitutions protect human rights. The most radical development in the history of human rights law is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948) and the Nuremberg Judgment as they quickly established the system of international law for states and human rights. individuals (Singh, 2016). To date, more than three-quarters of all states, including European Union (EU) countries, have ratified the treaties of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This regulation guided the development of European human rights (Varju, 2014). A disadvantage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the lack of legal tools to enforce norms against recalcitrant states, making the United Nations (UN) slow in developing an effective international human rights legal process on auniversal (Ritleng, 2012). Because of this limitation, it was logical for Europe to develop a regional international human rights framework to provide a realistic enforcement mechanism. The study traces the origins and history of human rights in Europasia from a political and legal point of view. The document examines the contribution of the Council of Europe and the EU to the development and advancement of human rights in European countries. Delimitation The coverage of the topic in this study is limited to the development of European human rights. The discussion highlights the origins of the Council of Europe, the negotiations and signing of the European Convention, as well as the progress of the convention over time. As for the EU, the document focuses on the ways in which the EU continues to promote the protection of human rights. The work considers neither the development of the key concept in other countries nor the decision-making procedures and structure of the Council of Europe. When it comes to the protection of human rights, the Council of Europe and the EU play a crucial role. Human rights are a legal system administered by the European Court and their study is of fundamental importance to lawyers, judges and law students for three reasons. First, Eckes (2013) states that the emergence of European human rights law was a significant event in Europe and no one should claim to have a superficial knowledge of the world's legal systems without being familiar with European human rights law. In most cases, this concept allows us to understand the nature of the legal system. However, controversy exists over whether the Council of Europe has lived up to expectations and whether the EU or the Charter has facilitated the development of human rights. The present study helps to resolve these uncertainties by discussing the role of the Council of Europe in the development of fundamental rights in Europe from 1949 to the present to show whether it has successfully contributed to the process. The paper also investigates how the EU has facilitated the advancement of human rights through the establishment of the Charter. Theoretical Framework The development of human rights has progressed over time, especially in the twenty-first century. Human rights have become a widely accepted global norm, codified in more than 100 national constitutions and regional agreements since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Maringele, 2015). They seek to protect human dignity everywhere and at all times. However, the concept of human rights is very controversial. Liberal and religious philosophers emphasize the need to theoretically ground human rights or reach political or legal consensus. The idea that the idea of ​​human rights is secular has created enormous debate in theological, philosophical and academic circles. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights laws exclude religious explanations which raise serious concerns about whether all human beings can be theoretically justified as having fundamental rights (Eckes, 2013). Religious and philosophical theories of human rights have failed due to a lack of inclusiveness. Religion-based theories argue that human rights are based on religious doctrines. Secular human rights theories, such as those of Ronald Dworkin, Michael Perry, and John Rawl, have failed to support the position that equates to intrinsic human worth by excluding some religions and individuals who are not equal (Little, 2015). To illustrate, Dworkin's secular sacredness theory argues that there is a religious interpretation of human rights and that human life has intrinsic value. Furthermore, Perry's theory provides a religious justification of human rights by arguing that the notion of human rights isreligious. The scholar agrees that there is no intelligible religious version of human rights. In contrast, Rawls views human rights as conceptually and politically not dependent on metaphysical, philosophical, or religious doctrines. The model omits political and civil rights, such as political participation and freedom of expression, creating space for human oppression. According to Little (2015), Rawls' model also neglects the fact that human rights violations primarily occur in sovereign states and exclude individuals living outside of society. Philosophical doctrines ascertain that religious theory does not meet the inclusion criteria. They also believe that the protection of human rights is inclusive and possible. In particular, the theory of the generic coherence principle emphasizes that all human beings have the right to well-being and freedom. It also states that human beings should accept that all other people have the same rights to well-being and freedom (Eckes, 2013). On the other hand, political theories argue that a shift from foundationalism rooted in religion and philosophical rights is necessary to achieve equality on human rights. However, both philosophical and religious doctrines have enriched the theoretical dimension of human dignity and universal rights. Through these theories, natural law dealing with human rights has entered into positive rights that have become effective through legal systems. In this regard, the origin of human rights discourse took on a form of resistance with the aim of liberating people from oppression. Based on Nanopoulos (2015), the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789 positively enshrined human rights. Both revolutions demonstrated that human rights should be universal and inalienable, meaning that human rights are independent of government. Eckes (2013) states that the previous two events tied individuals to government through the privatization of rights that strengthened the legitimacy of state oppression. At the same time, since the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the evolution of human rights has grown rapidly. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been succeeded by numerous international human rights treaties that define the rights that should be protected across the categories of civil, political and economic rights. Maringele (2015) argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has ushered in a new era in the evolution of human rights by being recognized as the legal framework for human rights mechanisms at national, regional and international levels. Therefore, this declaration served as a source of European human rights law. How have the Council of Europe and the EU contributed to the development and affirmation of European human rights from their foundation to the present day? Both the Council of Europe and the EU have played a central role in the series of international treaties through which EU member states have committed to promoting civil rights and fundamental freedoms within their jurisdiction. The Council of Europe has contributed to the development of European human rights through the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the most successful and advanced international legal system in the world. The Council of Europe was established on 5 May 1949 after the Second World War and currently unifies 47 member states (Singh, 2016). After World War II, many Europeans founded movements advocating the formation of an organization that would prevent the human rights abuses suffered during the two world wars,supporting the fundamental principles of democracy, peace and freedom. Negotiation of the European Convention Human rights became a priority for Europeans pushing for political union in May 1948 (Varju, 2014). The European government supported a treaty that would establish a Council of Europe as a formal institution to achieve European unity. On May 5, ten nations signed the act establishing the Council of Europe. There was an agreement that the agency's role would be to design and implement a human rights convention. The delegates suggested that it would be appropriate to establish not only the European Court but also the European Commission on Human Rights. Initially, the role of the commission was to protect the judicial function. The commission served as an intermediary between individuals and the court and between individuals and the government. On 12 July 1949, Professor Fernand Dehousse, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe and Pierre-Henri Teitgen prepared a draft statute for the European Court and the ECHR (Varju, 2014). On August 9, delegates from Sweden, France and Norway opposed the human rights agenda by arguing that the issue had already been widely discussed at the United Nations in the debate that led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the delegates drafted a special convention on human rights for Europe. On 13 August 1949, the Danish representative, Rasmussen, objected to the idea that human rights efforts in Europe would not duplicate the work of the United Nations. On August 19, the French Teitgen linked the development of a new legal system to the violation of legal bases in Nazi Europe (Eckes, 2013). The Commission agreed that only those essential and fundamental freedoms that are today defined and widely accepted by democratic regimes could be guaranteed (Singh, 2016). He prepared a draft convention that established the rights that would lead to the formation of the European Court and the Commission on Human Rights and provided that European individuals and countries had the right to petition the commission. Ungoed-Thomas of the United Kingdom and Rolin of France opposed the proposals for the commission and court, but ultimately all countries accepted the enumerated human rights while disagreeing over the role of individual rights of petition and court. The Council signed the ECHR on 4 November 1950 and applied it after almost three years on 3 September 1953 (Maringele (2015). Today the ECHR continues to safeguard human rights. The progress of the Convention The Declaration inspired the ECHR which deals largely with political and civil rights. The convention offered little that was exceptional in the international context. However, the Strasbourg enforcement mechanism was remarkable due to its effectiveness for almost 50 years thanks to two crucial optional clauses that remained relevant until. to November 1998, i.e. the old Article 25 and Article 46, which are now mandatory (Varju, 2014) most crucial aspect in the early days of the Convention was whether or not a European State would accept judicial jurisdiction and the individual instance. Another debate revolved around the Europeans' desire to have the Court and the international commission given the task of safeguarding human rights. Initially the governments of the European states were reluctant to accept the optional clauses. Over time, the members of the Council of Europe agreed to the two optional clauses. By 1995, all 30 European states involved in the Council of Europe had accepted the two clauses (Maringele, 2015). The system underwent developments and challenges from the 1960s to the 1990s. for example, Greece left the Council of Europe and rejected the ECHR in 1959. However,the number of states approving the individual petition and the court's jurisdiction had increased. In 1974, Greece rejoined the Council of Europe, and by the end of the decade, 17 states consented to the court's jurisdiction and 14 accepted individual petitions. Nanopoulos (2015) states that the 1980s saw an increase in activities under the Convention. By the end of the decade, 222 states supported the court's jurisdiction and the right to individual appeal. The court received 169 sentences and the commission found 455 appeals admissible (Eckes, 2013). In the 1990s, the legal system grew in both caseload and membership. The non-compliant states of Central and Eastern Europe joined the system. From just 22 states in 1989, state participation has nearly doubled over a ten-year period. In 1999, 41 States were members of the Convention and the Court issued 809 judgments, almost four times the number of cases handled in the first four decades of the Convention (Ziemele, 2013). The increase in the number of members and the workload convinced the Council of Europe to reform the legal system in Strasbourg which led to the merger of the Court and the Commission in 1999. The sixth decade of the European Convention, which began in 2000 , has experienced challenges in ensuring that the international human rights legal system upholds its responsibilities. In 2007, six other European states ratified the convention for a total of 47 member states. From 2000 to 2005, the Court opened 220,254 provisional files, declared 5,022 appeals admissible and issued 4,954 sentences (Varju, 2014). Currently, the Council of Europe offers strong legal protection for political and civil rights through the ECHR. It regulates the activities of member countries in human rights-related areas and uses monitoring bodies to provide recommendations for improvement. The Convention has direct effect through its incorporation into a national court or indirect effect through its application on the national legislation of all European states. Citizens whose human rights have been violated have the right to appeal to the European Court in Strasbourg. According to Maringele (2015), the Convention develops a sophisticated jurisprudence on various human rights through a large number of decisions and reports based on the ECHR, as well as a jurisprudence comprising more than 2,000 judgments. In the international context, the ECHR is used in the development of tests, techniques and legal criteria. The doctrine of the margin of appreciation is the main component of the ECHR that helps to perform its function. The role of margin of appreciation doctrines includes the expression of judicial restraint, a tool for the interpretation of human rights, and a means of expressing the European Convention in a subsidiary manner to the legislation of member states. The international human rights protection system applies the doctrine as a strategy to balance uniformity and diversity. A margin of appreciation is given if the court wants to create space for diversity. The Court does not mention the margin of appreciation when it wants to impose uniformity (Maringele, 2015). The Strasbourg Court makes extensive reference to the concept, particularly in cases relating to limitations of fundamental rights. The concept of the European Union The EU has been active in promoting universal recognition of human rights. The EU was started by states interested in the coal and steel industries and in boosting trade in Europe. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), created in the aftermath of World War II, brought together German and French coal and steel producers within a framework of cooperation that later openedto other European states. The role of the ECSC was to harmonize activities in these sectors in Western Europe. The first member states of the ECSC, such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, France and Belgium, signed the Treaty of Paris on 23 July 1953 (Singh, 2016). The ECSC contributed to rapid economic growth by eliminating trade barriers. Another role of the ECSC was to close uneconomical and inefficient coal and steel mines and eliminate excess production. Thus, the ECSC contributed to economic expansion and improved living standards. Therefore, the EU's initial objective was economic. Gradually, the Union implemented policy initiatives evolving from the ESCS to the European Economic Community (ECC), and then to the EU, established by the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty on European Union. At the beginning, the EU did not intend to get involved in human rights issues. The Union was unwilling to cede significant power to an international organization due to the disorientation of the founding states after World War II (Ritleng, 2012). Nonetheless, human rights have become a topical concern since the entry into force of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Court's ruling in several cases has held that the principles of EU law enshrine fundamental human rights. To illustrate, in 1963 and 1964, the Court established the supremacy of EU law over national laws, which made it clear that the European Court needed to take action to prevent human rights abuses. In 1969, the Court recognized its responsibility to protect human rights based on its decisions in Stauder v. City of Ulm which established the union's formal recognition of human rights (Maringele, 2015). The ruling recognized advanced human rights by recognizing that human rights were the principles of EU law. Furthermore, in 1970, the Internationale Handelsgesellschaft case called into question the supremacy of EU law. The Court's ruling forced the EU to develop its doctrine of fundamental rights so that the Union can protect these rights to prevent conflict with national laws. In 1974, in the Nold case, the Court clarified that international human rights are another source of EU fundamental rights and that EU measures in conflict with fundamental rights must be declared null and void (Ritleng, 2012). Following the ruling on these cases, among others, the European Court of Justice formulated the Doctrine of Human Rights which led to the development of a coherent declaration of human rights protected by the EU. The Charter of Fundamental Rights The EU has contributed to the advancement of human rights through the creation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights in June 1999. The Charter helps the EU to galvanize and extend human rights. In 2000, European countries adopted the Charter to make human rights more visible to citizens. The Charter brings citizens closer to the EU and covers almost all fundamental rights enshrined in the ECHR (Ritleng, 2012). In addition to the political and civil rights protected by the Convention, the Charter also includes social and economic rights. This means that, compared to the ECHR, the Charter makes cultural, social and economic rights visible to the EU allowing for a more systematic interpretation of fundamental rights. The most important aspect of the Charter is that it takes into account human rights introduced by technological and scientific development ensuring that the EU protects human rights in light of progress and social changes (Nanopoulos, 2015). The introduction and incorporation of the Charter into treaties provides the Court with guidance in making decisions on what.