Your invitation to me, as the President of the European Court of Human Rights, to conclude this year's study programme on the protection of hu man rights in Europe by delivering the prestigious Winston Churchill lec ture is a great honour not only for me personally but for the European Court of Human Rights as a whole, and I should like to thank the European Uni versity Institute and its Academy of European Law most warmly for giving me this opportunity. You are fortunate to have had the opportunity of following a week long general course on the protection of human rights in Europe given by my col league and friend Carl Aage N0rgaard, the President of the European Commission of Human Rights. To speak after hirn, in order to bring to a close your study programme, makes my task in some respects easier be cause I can take it for granted that you now have a clear and comprehensive understanding of the guarantees and the functioning of the European Con vention on Human Rights. On the other hand, it is, I must confess, not without a certain apprehension that I take the floor at this juncture because I am very weIl aware of how difficult it is to keep the attention of an audi ence which has had the privilege of hearing Carl Aage N0rgaard on more or less the same subject.