The Influence of EU Fundamental Rights Standards on the Strasbourg Case-Law. A New Tale in the European Multi-Layered Fundamental Rights Architecture?

Europe is home to one of the most advanced and sophisticated architectures for the protection of fundamental rights in the world. This architecture is characterized by the coexistence of several layers of norms that protect fundamental rights. These rights are simultaneously safeguarded in national constitutions, the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) and EU law.

In recent years, EU law has become a prominent source of fundamental rights. Since 2000, the EU has its own ‘Bill of Rights’, the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Furthermore, the EU legislator has increasingly developed fundamental rights standards in areas ranging from equality law to data protection.

The proliferation of EU fundamental rights standards is leading to a revolutionary shift for the European fundamental rights architecture. While the EU has traditionally been a ‘standard-taker’ in the field of fundamental rights, it is gradually becoming a ‘standard-setter’. Yet, the consequences of this evolution remain largely unexplored.

In particular, the EU develops its fundamental rights standards autonomously from one of the most authoritative systems of fundamental rights in Europe, the Council of Europe. Over the last decades, the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’), which is at the heart of this system, has been strongly inclined to rely on foreign sources to substantiate the ECHR rights.

The main objective of this project is to examine how and to what extent EU fundamental rights standards have influenced the interpretation of the ECHR rights by the ECtHR. In doing so, this project will shed light on how the ECtHR has seized the opportunities offered by these standards, and on how it has articulated the tensions arising from their use in its case-law.