CYIL 2015

210

MONIKA FOREJTOVÁ

CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ

Introduction

Development of international protection of human rights on both the universal

and regional level has been one of the key issues occupying states, especially since

the end of the Second World War. Human rights protection is a field showing the

greatest potential for the growth of the number and scope of peremptory norms.

At the same time, the matter of human rights has brought uncertainties and doubts

as to the scope of human rights and their applicability to all the entities subject to

international law. This means that it has not been only the states, as high treaty

parties, who have been entering the sphere of human rights in the last decades, but

also other international entities, such as the European Union. The duty to uphold

and respect human rights is, first and foremost, a duty of the states, which can even

result in a liability in relation to legal entities.

Since 2014 the key European issues when it comes to regional human rights

protection have been: the scope of human rights and the extent, to which the two

European courts participate in their protection. The first of the two courts, the

European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (hereinafter also as “ECtHR”) has

been specializing in human rights protection as its chief priority. The other, the Court

of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter also as “CJEU”) has yet to develop

its final doctrine of human rights. On the EU level, human rights protection is a

dynamic system, still seeking its place within the established Strasbourg mechanism

of protection of human rights.

European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights

From the Laeken Declaration in 2001 to the approval of the Charter of

Fundamental Rights (2001 – 2003) and EU conferences (2003 – 2007), during which

the matter of EU standard of protection of human rights was repeatedly discussed,

seeds were sown of a future clash of at least two approaches towards the relation of

Strasbourg and Luxembourg systems of human rights protection. Both approaches

shared the same goal – setting a high level of protection of human rights in Europe

and the European Union. The first approach was expressed by incorporating the

Charter of Fundamental Rights from Nice into the primary law. The other was based

on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human

Rights of 1950 (hereinafter also as the “Convention” or “ECHR”). The Convention

has been the basis of protection of human rights within the framework of the

Council of Europe and an established tool of enforcing individual human rights. A

wide forum of human rights advocates agreed that the best way would be to combine

ŠTURMA, P., FAIX, M. (eds.): Lidskoprávní dimenze mezinárodního práva. Studie z lidských práv

č. 7 (Human right dimension of international law. Studies in human rights no. 7). Prague: Charles

University, Faculty of Law, 2014, p. 13.

Ibid

., p. 46.