The European regional system of human rights emerged following the Second World War, and many of its instruments were drafted at the same time as those of the United Nations, indeed, often by the same individuals. One of the European system's exceptional features is its highly developed implementation mechanism built around the European Court of Human Rights. This body interprets and applies the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, known as the European Convention on Human Rights, and its protocols. Several Western European States – Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, Spain, Portugal and Italy – have played a pivotal role in advancing the abolition of the death penalty within the United Nations system. The sponsors of numerous resolutions within the General Assembly, they also take credit for proposing and promoting the Second Optional Protocol to the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty. Not surprisingly, it is within the regional system of these same States that the death penalty debate has been the most advanced. Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention, abolishing the death penalty in peacetime, was adopted in April 1983, many years before the corresponding instruments in the United Nations and Inter-American systems.

The European Convention on Human Rights was signed at Rome on 4 November 1950, and entered into force on 3 September 1953.