What international and European legal instruments protect the right to social security? What are the obligations which states have assumed under these instruments? How is their application monitored? What are the trends in national legislation in relation to the standards of the European Code of social security and its protocol, the main Council of Europe instruments in the social security field? Is social security considered as a human right and how has the case law of the European Court of Human Rights developed in this area? These are some of the key issues addressed in this publication, where the code and its protocol are viewed against the background of other standard-setting instruments, developments at national level and human rights.