A very fearful Court? The protection of Fundamental Rights in the European Union after Opinion 2/13

Spaventa, E.

doi:10.1177/1023263x1502200103

A very fearful Court? The protection of Fundamental Rights in the European Union after Opinion 2/13

Spaventa, E.

Authors

E. Spaventa

Abstract

In December 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union found, in Opinion 2/13, that the Draft Agreement for the EU accession to the ECHR was not compatible with the Treaties; unfortunately, some of the grounds relied upon by the Court will be diffi cult to remedy in a new agreement, even should the other parties to the ECHR be willing to negotiate a new agreement. Th is contribution recalls the reasons why accession was deemed necessary, and engages in a critical analysis of the Court’s ruling. In particular, it takes issue with the Court’s approach to justice and home aff airs, where the Court would like the accession agreement to somehow relieve the Member States of some of their ECHR obligation when giving eff ect to legislation based on ‘mutual trust’. Th e article then suggests that the three political institutions should simply declare that they consider themselves bound by the ECHR and that they will act without delay when and if the European Court of Human Rights should fi nd that a piece of Union law is incompatible with the Convention.

Citation

Spaventa, E. (2015). A very fearful Court? The protection of Fundamental Rights in the European Union after Opinion 2/13. Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 22(1), 35-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263x1502200103

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 4, 2015
Online Publication Date	Feb 1, 2015
Publication Date	Apr 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Mar 6, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 19, 2015
Journal	Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
Print ISSN	1023-263X
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	22
Issue	1
Pages	35-56
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263x1502200103
Keywords	Accession, ECHR, EU, Fundamental Rights, International Agreements, Opinion 2/13.

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Copyright Statement
Spaventa, E. (2015) 'A very fearful Court? The protection of fundamental rights in the European Union after Opinion 2/13.', Maastricht journal of European and comparative law., 22 (1). pp. 35-56. Copyright © 2015 The Author(s). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.