BOSPHORUS HAVA YOLLARI TURİZM VE TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ v. IRELAND JUDGMENT – CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE RESS 57 different and more lenient system as regards the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Convention. In fact, the intensity of control and supervision by the ECHR will not be too different between these States and others (such as Russia or Ukraine) which are not members of the European Community. 5. A general remark is necessary on paragraph 150 of the judgment as regards the interpretation of the Convention “in the light of any relevant rules and principles of international law”, which principles include that of pacta sunt servanda. This cannot be interpreted as giving treaties concluded between the Contracting Parties precedence over the Convention. On the contrary, as the Court recognised in Matthews v. the United Kingdom ([GC], no. 24833/94, ECHR 1999-I), international treaties between the Contracting Parties have to be consistent with the provisions of the Convention. The same is true of treaties establishing international organisations. The importance of international cooperation and the need to secure the proper functioning of international organisations cannot justify Contracting Parties creating and entering into international organisations which are not in conformity with the Convention. Furthermore, international treaties like the Convention may depart from rules and principles of international law normally applicable to relations between the Contracting Parties. Therefore, in Al-Adsani v. the United Kingdom ([GC], no. 35763/97, ECHR 2001-XI, which the Court cited in this connection in its judgment in the present case), the Court's approach to the relationship between different sources of public international law was not the right one. The correct question should have been whether, and to what extent, the Convention guarantees individual access to tribunals in the sense of Article 6 § 1 and whether the Parties could and should have been seen as nevertheless reserving the rule on State immunity. Since the Contracting Parties could have waived their right to rely on State immunity by agreeing to Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the starting-point should have been the interpretation of Article 6 § 1 alone. Unfortunately this question was never raised. In the present case, the correct approach should have been to examine whether, and to what extent, the Contracting Parties could and should be presumed to have reserved a special position in relation to the Convention for international treaties establishing an international organisation. The Court seems to proceed on the assumption that the Contracting States agreed inherently that the value of international cooperation through international organisations is such that it may prevail to a certain extent over the Convention. I could agree to this conclusion, in principle, if all Contracting Parties to the Convention were also parties to the international organisation in question. However, as Switzerland and Norway show, even from the very beginning of European integration, this has never been the case.