The Status of International Treaties on Human Rights

This publication contains a number of papers presented at an international seminar, held in Coimbra, Portugal in October 2005, organised by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) in co-operation with the lus Gentium Coimbrigae Centre and the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra and the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL). Issues considered include: human rights and state succession; territorial scope of human rights obligations; the position of human rights treaties in national legal systems; the obligation to comply with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights; the criteria for establishing the hierarchy of legal rules in national and international law.