The end of World War II left Europe in mourning for its 60 million dead and reeling as the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime came to light. Europe was divided between the Western and Eastern blocs, economies lay in tatters and the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as new global superpowers. In Western Europe a priority for political leaders was to get the economies working again and to defend against the spread of communism from the East. Within the context of the Cold War, the solution appeared to lie in greater Western European unity, with recovery possible through the pooling of Europe's economic resources and with new, jointly run institutions. Linked to the promotion of Western values and concepts of human rights, this model could provide a contrast to the lack of civil and political freedoms in the East. The concept of European unification, while not new, gained traction in the post-war years with a proliferation of congresses, conferences and declarations exploring the topic. Enthusiasm for European unity was shared by the United States, which saw an integrated Western Europe as a potential bulwark against the spread of Soviet communism and a constraint upon a resurgent German nationalism (Greer, 2018: 13).

The Hague Congress of Europe paved the way for the founding of the Council of Europe in May 1949 with ten members (there are now 47). It immediately set about drafting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – which was adopted in 1950 – and establishing its oversight body, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Despite the UN having adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, disagreements between East and West at United Nations (UN) level were preventing the development of legally binding rights mechanisms. Crucially, the ECHR allowed Western European states to develop their own set of rights for their citizens with which they could all agree and which could be used to promote the benefits of living in Western liberal democracies to those living in the East.

Given the British government's recent scepticism of the ECHR, it is perhaps surprising to note that British establishment figures – including the former Prime Minister Winston Churchill and lawyer David Maxwell-Fyfe – played a prominent role in initiating and developing the Convention.