With the permission of the Council of Europe, DCAF has translated the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights’ May 2015 Issue Paper on ‘Democratic and effective oversight of national security services’ (link to original source here) into several languages, all of which, including the English original, are available below.

This issue paper focuses on the oversight of state bodies, including both autonomous agencies and departments/units of other government departments or the armed forces, that have a mandate to collect, analyse and disseminate intelligence within the borders of their state in order to inform decisions by policy makers, military commanders, police investigators and border/customs agencies about threats to national security and other core national interests. The Paper also includes a number of recommendations on the basis of the issues raised by this issue paper formulated by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.

For further information on the Council of Europe and its publications please visit their web-site here.