The EU Fundamental Rights Landscape after Opinion 2/13

Abstract

On 18 December 2014, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in its Opinion 2/13 that the EU cannot accede to the ECHR under the terms of the negotiated Draft Accession Agreement. The Opinion and the stalemate it seems to have caused, raise important questions concerning the overall landscape of fundamental rights protection in Europe. Can the Court’s objections against the Draft Accession Agreement be overcome? Can the Agreement be re-negotiated to meet these objections? What are the legal issues such negotiations will have to solve? Is non-accession an option? What could the European system of human rights protection look like without accession? And what are the foreseeable consequences of accession or no accession for national courts? This joint working paper results from a workshop held at Maastricht University on 26 June 2015, which brought together academics and practitioners, members of negotiating teams and judges from the ECtHR, the CJEU and national courts, to discuss the consequences of Opinion 2/13 for broader issues of fundamental rights protection in Europe, and will examine future perspectives for accession of the EU to the ECHR.