Following–up on preliminary findings of March 2018, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has now re-assessed legislation passed in respect of Poland’s judiciary in 2017-18, including the new amendments to the laws on the National Council of the Judiciary, the Supreme Court and the Law on Ordinary Courts of April and May 2018. More...

CPT delegations have periodically inspected vehicles intended for the transport of detainees, mainly by road and rail. They often found that conditions were substandard or that basic safety requirements were not being met. More...

Xenophobic populism and hate speech have continued to be on the rise in 2017, with high levels of migration and challenges of integration, religious extremism, terrorist attacks and the austerity-driven socio-economic climate observed all over Europe, says the annual report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published today. More...

The Council of Europe is organising a conference in Strasbourg on 21 June to discuss the implications for data protection globally of the recently adopted modernisation of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, known as “Convention 108”. More...

The Serbian authorities must recognise that ill-treatment by the police is an accepted practice, and not the work of a few rogue officers; they must effectively investigate the allegations of ill-treatment and punish the crime, said the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee (CPT) in the report on an ad hoc visit to 16 police stations and prisons in Serbia in May-June 2017 published today, together with the Serbian Government’s comments (see also the Serbian version of the report and of the comments). More...

The United Kingdom has formally ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, known as the Lanzarote Convention. More...

Spain has made progress in developing the legislative, institutional and policy framework against trafficking in human beings. However, improvements are needed in a number of areas, in particular more efforts are required to tackle trafficking for labour exploitation, says the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) in a report published today. More...

The humanity and hospitality that Greece’s people and authorities demonstrated towards migrants in recent years is truly commendable. In spite of these efforts, however, the situation remains worrying and much more needs to be done to protect the human rights of those who have had to flee their country. More...

There is a voice which is rarely heard in the deeply divisive debate about refugee policies – the voice of cities. Listening to cities can not only make the debate more constructive, it can also help shape policies which reconcile solidarity and societal cohesion. More...

Cabo Verde today acceded to the Council of Europe´s Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, known as “Convention 108”, to its Additional Protocol on transborder data flows and supervisory authorities, and to the Convention on Cybercrime. More...