Ireland takes over the six month chairmanship of the Council of Europe on Monday at a particularly interesting time in its 50-year history. Active political issues during this time will include a continuing reconstruction programme in Kosovo, the proposed accession of Bosnia, reform of the Council's structures and the development of its relations with the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations.
The Council's central mandate is to promote democratic security among all European countries on the basis of human rights and the rule of law. Its main instruments include inter-governmental co-operation and the European Commission and Court of Human Rights, based on the European Convention of Human Rights adopted in 1950. Although the Council predates the European Union it does not have the same visibility as its sister organisation, despite the complementarity of their work; this is largely because its political work proceeds by consensus and without the aid of supranational institutions or an own-resources fiscal system.
For the last ten years the Council of Europe has had the job of stabilising democratic rights in new member states. Membership has grown from 25 to the present 41, reflecting the revolutionary changes on the continent since 1989. That role has grown enormously in importance as continental unity becomes a more realisable goal. The Council's deep involvement in ex-Yugoslavia, most recently in Kosovo, is ample testament to that task. So is the increasing convergence of its work with the EU and the OSCE. The EU's recent commitment to include the Balkan states in European integration and accession processes means that the potential overlap in membership between the two organisations could eventually be nearly complete.
In addition to that, the growing importance of basic democratic norms and values in enlarging the EU and developing its security and foreign policy apparatus mean it has to take more account of the Council of Europe's work and mandate. So does the development of the EU's involvement in immigration, asylum and crime prevention issues. At the recent Tampere summit an ambitious programme of work was agreed on these matters. It was also agreed to prepare a charter of fundamental rights in an attempt to summarise the EU's operative norms and values. At a summit in Helsinki next month it must decide on a mandate for another Inter-Governmental Conference, which could address the need to incorporate such rights in a constitution-type document. Happily the work of the Council of Europe and the EU have run in parallel, with increasing co-operation. Over a longer perspective, though, there is a need to restructure the relationship, even, as suggested by Mr John Bruton, to consider that they might be merged. The EU has balked at the suggestion that the European Convention on Human Rights should be incorporated fully into its treaties, because a number of member-states say that would undermine their legal sovereignty. It has been left up to individual states to incorporate the convention in their legal systems. The Government is committed to this course - a welcome development - but has yet to decide precisely how it should be done. There is a choice between full constitutional incorporation, requiring a referendum and an important change in the role of the Supreme Court, and a parallel process that would not be so radical in its legal implications. One way or another the Council of Europe will loom larger in the Irish political and legal systems over coming years.