The Promotion of Fundamental Rights by the Union as a Contribution to the European Legal Space: The Role of European Private International Law

Abstract

This article aims to contribute both to the REFGOV project, which is focused on the ambition to find ways of promoting human rights within the European Union, but also, more in general and apart from the project, to an improved understanding of the crucial place conflict of law rules occupy in the building of a common Europe - a highly political question behind apparently technical issues. In the study the author deals with the parameters, points of interest etc. in relation to Private International Law which should be heeded if European Member States look at each other's laws, and - in the context of the REFGOV project - if the idea would be to exchange best practices or harmonize substantive law, or to further harmonize Private International Law etc. through a kind of Open Method of Coordination. The contribution also shows that Private International Law issues are decisive in respect of every evaluation of the impact of European integration on human rights, both if this integration process takes place through negative harmonization (for example, by falling back on the principle of mutual recognition) and through positive harmonization. The main question is the following: what role is there to play for Private International Law in the promotion, by and within the European Union, of Human Rights?