The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereafter the Convention) has been in operation for almost 40 years, the Commission and the court for more than 30 years. In the meantime, recourse to Strasbourg has become a built-in mechanism of judicial review in the Member States. In particular, art 25 of the Convention which entitles individuals to plead a violation of the Convention has turned into a corner-stone of a working system of human rights protection, since the court's first decision in 1960. Even though the court's output cannot compare to internal state jurisdictions, applications to Strasbourg have risen dramatically over the years.