Nowadays, we have at our disposal a wealth of legal instruments for the protection of a multitude of human rights violations, and many of these rights have attained almost universal character. Regional courts have been able to significantly influence domestic developments by ruling on individual human rights violations, and perpetrators of serious human rights violations can now be held accountable before the International Criminal Court.

But why do such systematic and widespread human rights violations still exist? Why is the gap between our high expectations and the sobering reality, between human rights documents and their implementation still so wide?

The installation of an International Court of Human Rights could help us minimise the discrepancy between codified rights and reality. The idea of such a court dates back to 1947 and the Australian jurist, politician and author H.V. Evatt. However, due to the Cold War, this proposal could not achieve consensus in the international community.

Perhaps this political constellation was responsible for the fact that scholars never made an attempt to look for legal possibilities for the elaboration of statutes of an International Human Rights Court. Not only did the authors of this publication attempt to do so, but they also took into account in their work the major challenges to the protection of human rights today.