Europe from Ukraine to the Arctic: international law at a turning point

Secretary General Alain Berset spoke at the first meeting of 2026 of the Committee of Ministers – the decision-making body of the Council of Europe –with an acceleration of conflict and strife very much to the fore on the continent and around the world. However, Alain...

A year of reckoning

New year’s message by Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset:  We enter 2026 between two worlds. The one we knew, shaped by shared rules, patient institutions, and the belief that law could restrain power. And the one that is coming at us, where democracy is...