Council of Europe

                              Council of Europe

The West, exclusively, is inundated with self-proclaimed noble organizations and pressure groups with self-proclaimed high ideals, for you. They are unelected, virtually limited to the most benign and liberal countries in the world, and generally unknown. They have no plans for Africa, China or Russia. They do, however, have plans for you.

Who are these guys?

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), which describes itself as "independent," is the human rights monitoring body of the Council of Europe -- not to be confused with the European Union. The Council of Europe is composed of 47 member states, including all of the 27 European Union member states. Its decision and policy-making body is the Committee of Ministers, made up of the foreign ministers of each of the member states. Its most famous body is the European Court of Human Rights. The Council of Europe, unlike the EU, cannot make binding rules on its member states. Last year it celebrated its 70th anniversary. The Council of Europe calls itself the "continent's leading human rights organization... All 830 million people living in this common legal space have an ultimate right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights".

According to its 1997 Annual Report:

"The mandate of ECRI, as determined by the Heads of State and Government, is: to review member States' legislation, policies and other measures to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance, and their effectiveness; to propose further action at local, national and European level; to formulate general policy recommendations to member States...

"ECRI is composed of members designated by their governments (one for each member State of the Council of Europe) on the basis of their in-depth knowledge in the field of combating intolerance. They should have high moral authority and recognised expertise in dealing with racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance. ECRI's members are nominated in their personal capacity and act as independent members."

And who funds them?