Protecting the fundamental rights of individuals in cases of urgency. This is the general issue at stake that is raised by the study of « interim measures » in international human rights law. Such a simple assertion requires one to assess the progress made in this field. Indeed, it originally stems from a procedural mechanism in the national legal order – often referred to as « provisional measures » – that has traditionally been used to ensure the equal rights of the parties to legal proceedings; in one word, its aim is to protect the efficiency of the judicial system. Along the same lines, the implementation of this technique in the international legal order appears to mimic in its functioning the national legal order from where it originates. For a long time, preserving the rights invoked by a party to a dispute has logically been the object of interim measures in public international law, thereby maintaining the integrity of the decision on the merits of the case. In other words, the aim was to prevent both the object and the effectiveness of the decision from being denied so that the final outcome of the case was not prejudiced.