International Law, the ECHR, and the EU

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the relationship between international law, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the EU. International law features with respect to the EU both as an object of the EU's internal fundamental rights regime and as a source of human rights obligations. Whereas the latter reflects the original conception of international human rights law, the former is capable of generating unease due to the scope for contravening the principle of supremacy of international law. Moreover, although the ECHR can, in principle, be regarded as international law, it is of special importance to the legal order of the EU and its Member States, in addition to representing the most developed regional regime of human rights protection in the world. The specific character of the EU as neither a typical international (intergovernmental) organization nor a state often complicates the relationship with international law further. Nonetheless, Article 3(5) TEU requires the EU to contribute, in its international relations, ‘to the protection of human rights as well as the strict observance and the development of international law, including the respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter’. The chapter then looks at other Council of Europe instruments and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD).