Throughout this book, the European Court of Human Rights is referred to as ‘the Court’ or ‘the Strasbourg Court’; the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as “the European Convention on Human Rights”, “the Convention”, or the “European Convention”; and the word “ill-treatment”, unless otherwise specified, is employed as a collective term for all forms treatment prohibited by Article 3, i.e. torture, inhuman treatment and degrading treatment. Whenever inhuman or degrading punishment is meant, it is referred to as such. Finally, the person lodging the application and corresponding with the Court is referred to simply as ‘the applicant’ even though in practice that person may be the applicant’s lawyer. A number of documents have been appended to the Handbook including, reference materials such as the European Convention, Practice Directions, and so forth. The appendices also include a model Article 3 application to which applicants may refer in formulating their own applications. Section 1 of the Handbook presents an overview of the Council of Europe, the Court, the Convention, and provides a general description of the Court’s structure. The latter is intended to give the reader a bird’s-eye view of these proceedings and may be particularly useful to persons who have no prior experience with the Court. Section 2 describes the different stages an application goes through before the Court and provides detailed information on how to fill in the application form and how the application should be substantiated. Section 2 also deals with the admissibility and standing requirements of the Convention. The issue of substantiation is analysed in detail since the large percentage of applications declared inadmissible as “manifestly ill-founded” on this ground suggests that applicants are not according sufficient attention to admissibility requirements. Section 3 examines the substance of Article 3 by explaining the Court’s case law in a variety of areas, including detention, arrest, forced disappearance, etc. This section contains references to relevant case law which applicants can use and refer to when substantiating their own application. Although section 3 covers many areas in which Article 3 is relevant, it is not an exhaustive list. Situations not covered in this handbook might still give raise to an Article 3 violation. 16