Relationship Between the EUs Protection of Human Rights and Other Essay

Relationship Between the EUs Protection of Human Rights and Other Domestic Regional and International means of Protecting Human - Essay Example Among these three human rights protection mechanisms, EU charter of Fundamental Rights is the focus of this paper, and so this paper will critically discuss the relationship between this EU charter’s protection of Human Rights and other domestic, regional and international means of protecting human rights, particularly its relationship with national constitutional traditions, ECHR and United Nations (UN) Background of EU's protection of Human Rights European Union (EU) views protection of human rights, uploading of democracy and the rule of law as its core values. Although EU has not embedded human rights in its founding treaties, it spelled out its stance on human rights protection through the adoption of a Charter of Fundamental Rights in the year 2000. ... t human rights, as the well as countries which have concluded trade and other agreements with it.†3 Thus, on the whole, EU charter of Fundamental rights is uploading human rights in EU countries, as well as doing its part in non-EU countries, in association with other regional and international entities. As mentioned above, EU charter is one of the three layers of human rights protection in EU member countries, so it have ‘relationship’ with other layers of national constitution traditions and importantly with fellow regional grouping of ECHR, with varying degree of cooperation as well as divergence. Relationship between the EU's protection of Human Rights and domestic entities’ means of protecting human rights For most part of their existence, EU and its ECJ did not try to dominate or usurp the powers of the national governments in relation to human rights. This is because ECJ was not a human rights guardian per se, instead it was established by EU as the h ighest legal institution, designed â€Å"to uphold the process of economic integration among various member states.†4 However, it all changed with EU’s adoption of charter in 2000, and also due to certain actions by national legal bodies, which in a way tried to undermine EU. The threat to the supremacy of EU’s human rights laws over national laws arose when constitutional courts resisted Community action, â€Å"insofar as they considered it as violating fundamental rights protected in national constitutions.†5 This can be seen in Stauder v. City of Ulm, Case 29/69, [1969] ECR 419, in which the decision of the ECJ appeared to be contrary to the basic rights that were enshrined in the German constitutional law. To further assert its supremacy only, EU and ECJ decided to include fundamental human rights in