Council of Europe | Members, Structure, & History
Council of Europe, organization of European countries that seeks to protect democracy and human rights and to promote European unity by fostering cooperation on legal, cultural, and social issues. The council is headquartered in Strasbourg, France. (The Council of Europe should not be confused with the European Council, which is a policy-making body of the European Union.) The Council of Europe was founded on May 5, 1949, by 10 western European countries—Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. From the 1950s to the 1980s...