In Chapter 2 I propose reconceptualising the ‘CoE system’ from one traditionally seen as a hierarchy of autonomous institutions towards an understanding of a matrix of mutually reinforcing judicial and non-judicial components for which Member States have collective responsibility. I argue that a whole-of-system approach is especially important when faced with systemic problems of such complexity. I then offer a high-level snapshot of current examples which exist in Eastern Europe (Transnistria and currently occupied parts of Ukraine), the South Caucasus (the Karabakh region/Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and the Eastern Mediterranean (Northern Cyprus).

The book grapples with the applicability and application of international human rights law in geographic areas where the State that is recognised as the sovereign of the territory (territorial State) has lost effective control over a part of its territory. As such regions vary both as to the manner in which the territorial State has lost its territorial control and as to the subject that has taken over territorial control of the area, the chapter classifies and delimits the geographic areas on which the book focuses, and presents its conceptual framework.