The justice secretary says the European Court should take only "serious cases"
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said he is "very hopeful" agreement will be reached by 47 states to overhaul the European Court of Human Rights.
The countries are meeting in Brighton to discuss UK plans to curb its powers.
The UK has criticised some judgements, including giving prisoners the vote and blocking the deportation of Abu Qatada.
But court president Sir Nicolas Bratza told the conference that "sometimes minority interests have to be secured against the view of the majority".
Prime Minister David Cameron wants the countries which use the court to limit its ability to overrule cases already determined by national courts.
He wants to enshrine the principle of "subsidiarity" in the Brighton Declaration, which it is hoped ministers will agree at the end of the two-day conference.
'More sparingly'
At the end of last year, judges in Strasbourg faced a backlog of nearly 152,000 cases, of which an estimated 90,000 will be categorised as "inadmissible".
Opening the conference, Mr Clarke said "huge progress" had been made in tackling the number of inadmissible cases, but the court was still receiving more admissible cases than it could handle in "a timely manner" - some 3,000 a year, compared with a manageable workload of 2,000.
"[Some] cases stuck waiting in that queue will be serious ones," he said, citing examples of unlawful detention and restrictions on free speech.
"These cases should not wait years before they are determined."
The declaration must be agreed by the parliaments of all 47 member countries before coming into force. The UK government estimates this could happen within a couple of years.
Earlier, the justice secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was optimistic that progress could be made, "although 47 member states is quite a lot to get to agree to any form of words".
"The rule of law should be applied more sparingly at international level, and more promptly, and our courts should normally get on with the cases except where there's a serious argument they have manifestly erred," Mr Clarke said.
"The rule of law is a bit tortuous in Strasbourg. Too many cases go there, including too many trivial ones, and it takes too long.
"We shouldn't have all these rubbishy cases going there. Not that they're just irritating, but they make all the big cases take years and years to get on."
The other main principle demanded by the UK is to allow a "margin of appreciation" - giving national governments greater leeway in applying the judgements of the court.
Mr Clarke said there could not be "an absolute rule" giving pre-eminence to national courts or parliaments, but it would not "very often happen" that a domestic decision would be overruled.
'Difficult to accept'
Critics of the UK's desire to reduce the court's workload also say it risks damaging access to justice in some member countries, including Russia and Ukraine.
And in his opening speech to the conference, Sir Nicolas said he was "uncomfortable with the idea that governments can in some way dictate to the court how its case law should evolve or how it should carry out the judicial functions conferred on it".
"In order to fulfil its role the European court must not only be independent, it must also be seen to be independent," he added.
Sir Nicolas continued: "It is nevertheless not surprising that governments and indeed public opinion in different countries find some of the courts judgements difficult to accept.
"[But] it is... in the nature of the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law that sometimes minority interests have to be secured against the view of the majority.
"I would plead that this should not lead governments to overlook the very real concrete benefits that the court's decision have brought for their own countries on the internal plane."
He also welcomed the fact that there was no proposal at the conference to alter the admissibility criteria for cases to the court.
Ahead of the conference, Sir Nicolas said he had "no sympathy" with critics who argued in favour of a shift in power to national level, but agreed that moves were needed to improve the court's efficiency.
In a speech in January, Mr Cameron said some rulings by the court were having a "corrosive effect" on people's support for civil liberties.
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