Criminal law normally permits the prosecution of accused offenders only for prescribed periods of time, outside of which no legal actions are possible—this kind of restriction known as statutory limitation. In January 1965 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) recommended that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CM) draw up a Convention on the Non-Application of Statutory Limitations to Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes. It was the position of PACE that member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) should take appropriate measures to disallow that crimes that had been committed with political, racial, and religious motives before and during World War II (and more generally crimes against humanity) could remain unpunished simply by virtue of the application of statutory limitation.

Finding that several CoE member states had already adopted, as part of their domestic laws, measures that...