NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

organisation’ in different treaties within this international organisation, we will deal with the explanation of the notion in question in the CoE treaties in a separate part. As previously mentioned, the Council of Europe is not the only international organisation handling the issue of human rights in Europe. To some extent, human rights issues are also present in the activities of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 103 (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘OSCE’), the European Union 104 (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘EU’) and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last organisation has shown its ineffectiveness in the protection against possible breaches of human rights by the member states of the Russian Commonwealth. 105 For this reason, we will not consider it anymore in the present text. We will start with the analysis of the word ‘NGO’ in international treaties of the Council of Europe. Later in this section, we will briefly have a look at how this term is present in the documents of the other European regional organisations with human rights agendas, namely the EU and the OSCE. Council of Europe treaties The most prominent human rights treaty of the CoE is the European Convention onHumanRights.The exact expression ‘NGO’ is found inArticle 34 of the Convention. In many other provisions of the Convention, it is implied that they are applicable to NGOs acting in different capacities. A detailed explanation of the term ‘non governmental organisation’ in the Convention will be given in Section 1.2. of this book, which deals with all of the possible interpretations of this expression in the current agreement. The present part of the manuscript will deal with this term in the other CoE treaties. While it could be assumed that the understanding of the term ‘NGO’ should be the same in all treaties of the same international organisation, an analysis of the other CoE treaties shows, conversely, that it is not always so. The Council of Europe member states to the date adopted more than 200 treaties. 106 The most relevant for our study among them is probably the treaty that, directly in its title, contains the phrase ‘non-governmental organisation’. This is the European convention on the recognition of the legal personality of international non governmental organisations . 107 In accordance with Article 1, this convention is applicable to associations, foundations and other private institutions which satisfy the following conditions: 1) have a non-profit-making aim of international utility; 2) have been established by an instrument governed by the internal law of a Party; 3) carry on their activities with effect in at least two States; and 4) have their statutory office in the territory of a Party and the central management and control in the

103 TOMUSCHAT, 2008, cited above, p. 164. 104 Ibid., p. 157.

105 See, Co-existence of the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the European Convention on Human Rights, cited above . 106 See < http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ListeTraites.asp?CM=8&CL=ENG> accessed 20 July 2015. 107 European convention on the recognition of the legal personality of international non-governmental organisations, Strasbourg, 24 April 1986.

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