Yesterday, 26 May, it was exactly five years ago that I started this blog on the European Convention of Human Rights. Looking back at the first post, I see that I had a rather grand aim of being “a portal to information on the European Court of Human Rights and its judgments and decisions”, but luckily also realistically assessed it would be “impossible to report on everything”. Indeed, the number of Court judgments and of writings about the ECHR has continued to increase in this half decade. In parallel, the number of blogs and website has proliferated, both nationally and internationally (see the sidebar for relevant links), and of course the online information resources of the Strasbourg institutions themselves have tremendously improved. It is in this continually expanding universe, that this blog feels at home.
Since its inception, the blog has attracted (according to Blogger’s statistics) over 884,000 pageviews for the almost 700 posts that I wrote. This year, visitors have already come from over 150 countries, with the UK, the US, the Netherlands, France and Germany forming the top-5. It is truly a joy and also a humbling experience that the blog continues to be of interest to such a wide audience. Thus I want to sincerely thank all of you, the readers of this blog, for both your interest and the frequent input of many of you about new conferences, publications and other ECHR-related news. This blog could not exist without it – your enthusiasm induces it (and me) to continue!
