The accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights: some controversial aspects

Abstract

In April 2013 the final Draft revised Agreement on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, which laid down a solid basis for the discussion on the feasibility and effectiveness of the legal measures for the EU’s accession was adopted. However, the accession of the EU should be proceeded with in accordance with the autonomy of EU and EU law. Therefore the aim of this article is to analyse the essential and most controversial legal measures of the EU’s accession to the ECHR and to evaluate their compatibility with the autonomy of EU law. The authors of the article will focus not only on the novelties, such as the co-respondent mechanism and the prior involvement of the CJEU procedure, but attention also will be paid to the application of the admissibility criteria of the exhaustion of domestic remedies under Article 35(1) of the ECHR and the inter-state (inter-party) applications established in Article 33 of the ECHR in the context of EU law.