Based in Strasbourg, France, the European Court of Human Rights is a supra-national or international court established by the European Convention on Human Rights. It hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights provisions concerning civil and political rights set out in the Convention and its protocols. An application can be lodged by an individual, a group of individuals, or one or more of the other contracting states, and, besides issuing judgments, the Court can also issue advisory opinions. The Convention was adopted within the context of the Council of Europe, and all of its 47 Member States are contracting parties to the Convention. In this book, a brief history of the origins and development of the Court is presented. The book includes the recently (May 2013) updated Rules of Court and the appendix contains the most basic documents of the Court.