The Political Role of the European Commission of Human Rights as a “Third Party”

This study examines the political function of the European Commission of Human Rights in the decades preceding the reforms introduced by Protocols No. 9 and No. 11. Drawing on Pier Paolo Portinaro's theory of the political "third", it argues that the Commission operated not merely as a procedural filter for individual applications under Article 25 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but as an instrument of political compromise between national sovereignty and an emerging supranational jurisdiction. Through an analysis of the travaux préparatoires, the memoirs of the Convention's founding figures and the case law of the early years, the study reconstructs the divergent visions of Europe underlying Articles 19 and 25, and identifies within the early European community a recalcitrant constituency sceptical of the Court itself. It contends that the Commission's mediating role served a dual purpose: preserving the authority of States while advancing cautiously towards a new European order, and safeguarding Western interests within the ideological confrontation of the Cold War. The study concludes by considering the comparative potential of this perspective for the Inter-American and African human rights systems