Superior Courts Network
The Network
The Superior Courts Network (SCN) was created in 2015 as a unique model for judicial dialogue, aimed at supporting national courts in their application of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Network now spans all 46 Council of Europe member States, comprising 112 member courts and 8 observer courts. As a community of practice dedicated to sharing knowledge and know-how at an operational level, the Network has become the cornerstone of the Court’s judicial dialogue with national superior courts, thereby promoting subsidiarity and shared responsibility for implementing Convention standards.
The guiding principles of the SCN are set out in its Cooperation Charter. The Operational Rules describe the functioning of the Network and evolve in consultation with the member courts.
Activities within the network take a variety of forms such as the Annual Forum of Focal Points, the Visiting Professionals Scheme, webinars and online training.
The President of the Court has entrusted the management of the SCN to the Directorate of the Jurisconsult.
The SCN is supported by the joint project Enhancing Subsidiarity: Support to the ECHR Knowledge-sharing and Superior Courts Dialogue (Subsidiarity Project) which is a collaboration between the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights and the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe. It could also be supported by other Council of Europe projects funded by various member States and occasionally by direct contributions from States.
Message of the President
Ten years of judicial dialogue in the service of shared responsibility
The exchange of views between judges is an expression of legal pluralism and broadmindedness. It leads to the gradual establishment of a common system of law, to be achieved while respecting differences, through model-sharing and mutual enrichment of case-law. But at the level of the Council of Europe and the Convention system, dialogue also, and even primarily, satisfies the need to implement, under optimal conditions, the “shared responsibility” on which effective respect for the rights and freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights is based. As a reflection of the guiding principle of subsidiarity, this “shared responsibility” between the Strasbourg Court and the national authorities, first and foremost the domestic courts, makes dialogue highly desirable, if not imperative. (...)
Membership
Any court wishing to join the Network should write a letter to that effect to the President of the ECHR.
- Secured website (for SCN members)
News
The SCN welcomes a new member: the Supreme Administrative Court of Austria, which brings the membership of the Network to 112 courts from 46 States.
SCN 10th anniversary
The Superior Courts Network marked its first ten years of activity on 5 and 6 June 2025.
Celebrations included an anniversary session and the launch of an anniversary book.
SCN Video
