Eugenics influenced the formulation of the European Convention on Human Rights

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe this week dived in to deeply rooted discrimination and rights issues, discussing core values on which the Council had been founded in 1950. Ongoing research is tracking down the roots to text in the part of the European Convention on Human Rights that delineate, but also limits the right to liberty and security of person.

The Parliamentary Assembly Committee in a motion approved in 2022 pointed out, that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is “the only international human rights treaty to include a limitation to the right to liberty specifically on the basis of impairment, with its formulation in Article 5 (1) (e), which excludes certain groups (“socially maladjusted” individuals in the wording of the European Court of Human Rights) from the full enjoyment of the right to liberty.”

As part of the research in to this the Assembly’s Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development Monday held a hearing with experts to learn more and further discuss the matter. Experts presented data to the Committee’s members and were...