By focusing on the systems in which the regional human rights Courts are embedded, the aim is to provide a context for the comparative analysis that follows in the subsequent chapters. Providing such a context is important because the Courts are not isolated entities but exist within the institutional framework of a regional system built around the regional international organisation responsible for establishing them. In setting out this context, the chapter examines the origins and evolution of those organisations and their human rights systems. Beginning with those regional organisations that currently have an operative Court, the chapter considers the development of the European, Inter-American and African human rights systems before examining the development of the Arab system. The chapter ends by setting out the structure of the book and the procedural or institutional aspects that are addressed in the remaining chapters.