A Giant Step Backwards? Opinion 2/13 on the EU's Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights

Abstract

On 18 December 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered Opinion 2/13 on whether the Draft Agreement on the European Union’s Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights is compatible with EU law. The Court found that the Agreement did not sufficiently take into account the specific nature of the European Union, and that it in many ways violated the ‘autonomy’ of the EU legal order. This Working Paper examines the Court’s findings in Opinion 2/13 and the reasons why it rejected the draft Accession Agreement. It focuses on the most troubling finding: that that the Strasbourg Court’s jurisdiction over the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy in the fails to have regard to the specific features of EU law. The Working Paper concludes by looking at the next steps that could be taken in order for the EU to accede to the Convention.

Keywords: Opinion 2/13, European Union, European Convention on Human Rights, Court of Justice of the European Union, Human Rights, Autonomy