EU Equality Law: The First Fundamental Rights Policy of the EU

© Elise Muir 2018. In the early days, a choice was made not to entrust the EU with competences allowing it to protect against violations of fundamental rights per se. This task was placed in the hands of the Council of Europe. Although this choice has not been called into question, the EU has developed a broad range of instruments to respond to the impact of its activities on fundamental rights and a mechanism for surveillance of compliance with the rule of law. One trend that has been subject to little attention, and to which this book is devoted, is the exercise by the EU of a new generation of competences that allow for the development of tools explicitly designed to flesh out as well as to promote selected fundamental rights. The exercise of such competences, of which EU equality law as it has blossomed since the late 1990s is the most ancient example and therefore the central case study, triggers a number of constitutional questions. The sophisticated and powerful infrastructure of the EU legal order is thereby used to promote a given conception of a fundamental right, to define how it relates to others, and also to elaborate mechanisms for these approaches to permeate domestic legal cultures. This monograph explores the implications of this very symbolic and equally sensitive form of law-making. Particular attention is devoted to the complex relationship between primary and secondary law as well as to the importance of stimulating reflection on fundamental rights within the domestic sphere.

ISBN:9780198814665

Publication year:2018