Weiß, Wolfgang --- "EU Human Rights Protection after Lisbon" [2012] ELECD 522; in Trybus, Martin; Rubini, Luca (eds), "The Treaty of Lisbon and the Future of European Law and Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Treaty of Lisbon and the Future of European Law and Policy

Editor(s): Trybus, Martin; Rubini, Luca

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857932556

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: EU Human Rights Protection after Lisbon

Author(s): Weiß, Wolfgang

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

12. EU human rights protection after
Lisbon
Wolfgang Weiß

1. INTRODUCTION

The Lisbon Treaty changed the EU human rights scenario. Under Article 6
(1) TEU, the Charter on Fundamental Rights (CFR)1 has become a legally
binding instrument of primary law. According to Article 51 (1) CFR, the
Charter is now binding on the EU institutions and the Member States. This
is not the only innovation brought in by Lisbon. The Lisbon Treaty also
profoundly changed the legal significance of the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR). This does not only refer to the future accession of
the EU to the ECHR. Already with the entry into force of the Lisbon
Treaty the importance of the ECHR for EU law has increased due to
Article 52 (3) CFR which provides that the meaning and scope of those
rights in the CFR that correspond to rights guaranteed by the ECHR are
the same as those in the ECHR. Thus, core norms of the ECHR become
materially incorporated into EU law (see infra, Section 2). The ECHR is
additionally referred to in Article 6 (3) TEU which corresponds almost
literally to Article 6 (2) TEU-Nice version and which mentions the ECHR
as one of the sources for the identification of fundamental rights as general
principles of EU law.2


1
Republished in OJ [2010] C 83/389.
2
Article 6 (3) TEU refers only to the ECHR which, however, does not rule out
other international human rights instruments (as questioned by ...