'It's the Autonomy, Stupid!' A Modest Defense of Opinion 2/13 on EU Accession to the ECHR, and a Way Forward

Daniel Halberstam 

University of Michigan Law School
February 20, 2015

U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 439 
Abstract:      

Opinion 2/13 of the European Court of Justice (striking down the draft agreement on accession to the ECHR) has been widely derided as “unsubstantiated,” purely “self-interested,” and “playground politics.” This Article disagrees with that assessment. The Article provides the first comprehensive legal analysis and reconstruction of the Opinion’s many objections to show why the Court’s concerns are mostly warranted. At the same time, however, the Article explains why accession to the ECHR is not only important for human rights, but also vital to save the European Union itself. Finally, the Article points the way forward, arguing for changes (though not all those the Court demands) that must be, and can be, made to allow accession to proceed.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 39

Keywords: Opinion 2/13, European Union, Constitutionalism, Common Foreign and Security Policy, European Convention on Human Rights, Accession, EU External Relations

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2567591

See also the discussion in verfassungsblog  http://www.verfassungsblog.de/category/schwerpunkte/union-meets-convention-how-to-move-on-with-accession-after-cjeu-opinion-213/