The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom has established one of the most effective regional system of protecting human rights. The principle of subsidiarity of the Convention does not reduce the effectiveness of the system. At the heart of it is the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has the jurisdiction to decide on individual applications, inter-state cases and advisory opinions. However, many individual applications have been dismissed because of jurisdictional questions or admissibility. Only after cases have passed jurisdictional hurdles such as exhaustion of domestic remedies, could the Court decide on the merits. Anonymous applications or applications already submitted to other international procedures shall be dismissed. The Court has been playing a pivotal role in protecting human rights in Europe and has been considered a model for other human rights institutions. Moreover, national courts in Europe are increasingly citing cases of the Court. Asia does not have its own human rights convention, while Europe, America and Africa have their own regional human rights systems covering their continents. Shared values are considered to be essential among regional nations for the success of regional human rights systems. However, culture differences among Asian states are not to be stressed too much. Effective human right systems in Asia could be possible if Asian states try to find common ground based on universality of human rights. If that arises, I believe, the experience of the European Court of Human Rights is likely to shed some lights for our future.