Member States
Starting with 18 member states, soon all member states of the Council of Europe joined the Venice Commission and since 2002 non-European states can also become full members. Today, as of 2012, the Commission counts 58 member states – the 47 member states of the Council of Europe and 11 other countries. Belarus is as associate member and there are six observers. The European Commission, Palestinian National Authority and South Africa have a special co-operation status similar to that of the observers. The EU Committee of the Regions, OSCE/ODIHR and IACL/AIDC (The International Association of Constitutional Law | Association internationale de droit constitutionnel) participate in the plenary sessions of the Commission.
Read more about this topic: Venice Commission
Famous quotes containing the words member and/or states:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)