Lock, Tobias --- "The EU before the European Court of Human Rights after accession" [2017] ELECD 974; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 226

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights

Editor(s): Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781782546399

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: The EU before the European Court of Human Rights after accession

Author(s): Lock, Tobias

Number of pages: 17

Abstract/Description:

Accession by the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been on and off the political agenda for more than 30 years. First mooted by the European Commission in 1979, efforts to formally integrate the EU into the Convention system were dealt a blow by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in 1996. In Opinion 2/94 it held that accession could not be based on Article 235 TEC (now Article 352 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)) because the implications of accession would be of constitutional significance and could thus only be brought about by way of Treaty amendment. Given the lack of a concrete draft treaty, the Court at the time could not be very specific as to the precise constitutional challenges accession would bring. However, one can presume that, much like in Opinion 2/13,its own role and its relationship with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) lay at the heart of its concerns. After a brief hiatus, EU accession became tangible again when an explicit competence was included into the failed Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which also made its way into the Lisbon Treaty and is now found in Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). According to this provision the EU ‘shall accede’ to the ECHR. More specifically, Protocol No 8 to the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the accession agreement ‘shall make provision for preserving the specific characteristics of the Union and Union law’.