In 1949 the United Kingdom was one of a group of Western European countries which agreed to set up the Council of Europe. This organisation was responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights, an international treaty which binds the ratifying states to observe certain standards of behaviour towards individuals, and sets up at Strasbourg an administrative agency called the European Commission on Human Rights and a legal tribunal called the European Court of Human Rights to deal with complaints against member states whose laws allegedly infringe the terms of the Convention. Member states were free to choose whether or not to submit to jurisdiction over complaints lodged by individuals as well as by other member states. The United Kingdom at first refused to accept the right of individual petition, but in 1966 accepted it. Since then, a procession of persons disgruntled with United Kingdom laws, or with the decisions of United Kingdom courts, or with both, has taken its complaints to the European Commission on Human Rights at Strasbourg. At present, around 100 applications are being lodged against the United Kingdom every year.

The machinery for enforcing the Convention consists of a Committee of Foreign Ministers of member states, a body of Commissioners elected by the Committee, and a court composed of judges nominated by the member states.