The final declaration called for a follow-up plan to be adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In the final declaration the member states of the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the ECtHR and the secretary-general of the Council of Europe were invited to ensure the implementation of the follow-up plan, which builds on the Interlaken Action Plan to reform the ECtHR.
The İzmir Conference, a follow-up to the Interlaken Conference on the future of the European Court of Human Rights, pursued three main goals regarding the future of the ECtHR: to make a preliminary assessment of the impact of Protocol 14, which is to maintain and improve the efficiency of the control system for the long term, mainly in the light of the continuing increase in the workload of the ECtHR; to take stock of what was achieved by a reform process launched by the Interlaken Conference in February 2010; and to reflect upon further ideas for pursuing that reform.
According to the declaration, all parties that participated in the İzmir Conference recognized the extraordinary contribution of the ECtHR to the protection of human rights in Europe and expressed their determination to ensure the effectiveness of this mechanism in the short, medium and long terms.
Referring to Protocol 14, which was adopted at the Interlaken Conference, the İzmir declaration stated that the latter will not provide a lasting and comprehensive solution to the problems facing the European Convention system, whilst the potential of the provisions introduced by Protocol 14 remain to be fully exploited and the results achieved so far are encouraging.
The declaration also highlighted the action plan to be implemented in order to deal with the 150,000 backlogged cases more efficiently. The follow-up plan comprises measures such as the right of individual petition, the implementation of the convention at the national level, filtering and advisory opinions. The conference also invited the future chairs of the Council of Europe to jointly follow up on the implementation of the present declaration with the Interlaken Declaration of 2010.
