Does the EU lack legitimacy in promoting human rights abroad? : a critical analysis of the EUs human rights policies

Abstract

While the European Union tirelessly promotes the indivisibility and universalism of the human rights as well as the establishment of strict scrutiny of its economic third country-partners, the human rights discourse changes as it come closer to question and scrutinise its own Member States. Although major steps towards better protection of human rights and commitment to respect for fundamental rights have been taken, inter alia by the Court of justice’s very active case-law and by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, double standard remains. The concrete outcome of new Article 6 of the TEU that gives to the Charter of Fundamental Rights a legal status, binding the Union’s Institutions and Member States when implementing EU law; and provides an obligation for the Union to accede the ECHR, remain unclear. Member States are still reluctant in being subjected to internal scrutiny. However, the analysis the EU Institutions’ response to the Hungarian case and the use that they made of new sanction procedure provided by Article 7 TEU and of the EU Charter, as well as the analysis of the recent case-law, notably the NS case1, of the ECJ ajar a door of more precisions and an outline answer to the subsisting doubts. 1 N. S. and M. E. Joined Cases C-411/10 and C-493/10, 2011, OJ C 274/34.