The Regional Response: the Council of Europe

In one line

Europe did what the world would not: it made the ethics of biomedicine and the law of cybercrime into binding treaties, and it opened both to States outside Europe.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Council of Europe produced the two binding instruments this subject otherwise lacks. The Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164), the Oviedo Convention, was opened at Oviedo on 4 April 1997 and entered into force on 1 December 1999; the Treaty Office describes it as the first legally-binding international text designed to preserve human dignity, rights and freedoms, through a series of principles and prohibitions against the misuse of biological and medical advances. The Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185), the Budapest Convention, was opened at Budapest on 23 November 2001 and entered into force on 1 July 2004; the Treaty Office describes it as the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks.

What a regional response is, and why it can go further

A regional instrument is made by a group of States within an organisation of limited membership, rather than by the whole international community.

Three consequences, and they are the answer to why Europe has treaties and the United Nations has declarations.

Agreement is easier among fewer and more similar States. A convention needs a text every party can ratify. Among the members of the Council of Europe, whose legal systems and constitutional traditions overlap, that text can say more than one acceptable to the whole General Assembly.

A binding form becomes possible. The 1997, 2003 and 2005 UNESCO instruments are declarations for the reasons [The UNESCO Trilogy of 1997, 2003 and 2005] gives. Oviedo, on substantially the same subject and adopted in the same year as the first of them, is a convention.

And enforcement machinery becomes possible, because a regional organisation already has courts and committees.

The cost is reach. A regional instrument binds its parties, and most of the world is not among them.

The Oviedo Convention, ETS No. 164

The record. Opened at Oviedo on 4 April 1997. Open for signature by the member States, the non-member States which have participated in its elaboration and by the European Union, and for accession by other non-member States. Entry into force 1 December 1999, on five ratifications including four member States.

What the Treaty Office says it does, and this is the level at which the chapter may state its content: