The impact of International Human Rigts Regulations on domestic law: Decisions of European court of human rights and Turkey

While the United Nations (UN) provides the system of universal protection of human rights, it might be argued that European human rights system is the most efficient regional protection system. European Convention of Human Rights under the Council of Europe opened a new era in the protection of human rights. Judicial inspection mechanism of Convention guarantees the rights of individuals and also punishes the violations of these rights. With the protocol No 11, European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) became one inspection organ, which made the individuals the subject of international law. The ECHR played an important role for the development of human rights with its decisions about the cases.In this study, after dealing with the structure and methods of ECHR, the impact and contribution of ECHR to the human rights in Turkey will be evaluated. Changes made in the domestic law in Turkey after Turkey accepted individual petition of the ECHR will be analysed. It would be an example of the impact of international arrangements to the domestic structure and regulations of states. It is also related to the Turkey?s integration process with the West and its aspiration to be a member of the European Union (EU). Even though ECHR is not an organ of the EU, all EU states accepted the norms of ECHR. Therefore it would be inevitable for Turkey to change its domestic law according to the decisions of ECHR. Despite some problems faced with the security forces, Turkey chose to change its law and regulations as soon as the decision of ECHR, which indicated the decisiveness of Turkey to develop human rights situation in the country.KEY WORDS: European Convention of Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights, Turkey, Protection of Human Rights.