Chapter 4 builds on the fourth, as it shows how European human rights were transformed in ‘the age of activism’, 1968–1979.

Crucially, it shows how these grassroots developments predated the legal revolution and formed a necessary precondition for the legal changes which followed later. This follows individual activists, lawyers and academics in their turn to Strasbourg. As some of their cases got into the European system, it provoked a reaction within the Committee of Ministers which had a lasting impact on the system as whole.

For as an answer to the complaints coming in from below, the Dutch government itself set out on a remarkable campaign to energize the European Court. It set out to change the referral policy of the Commission which, famously restrictive, almost never sent cases to the European Court.

Yet with the rise in prominence of human rights, also the question of the ‘overseas territories’ returned. In the lead-up to the independence of Suriname, human rights were deliberately kept at bay. European human rights emerged as points of contention in the Kingdom, with the Antilles embracing a close connection to the European system and Suriname eager to break free from it.