Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas --- "Introduction" [2017] ELECD 964; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 1

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights

Editor(s): Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781782546399

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

Introduction
Sionaidh Douglas-Scott and Nicholas Hatzis



I
The place of human rights in EU law has been a central issue in contemporary debates
about the character of the European Union as a political organisation. In Article 2 of
the Treaty on European Union (TEU) human rights are described as one of the Union's
foundational values while Article 6 TEU recognises fundamental rights as general
principles of EU law and elevates the Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR; Charter) to
the same level as the Treaties. This is the culmination of a long process of
incorporation of human rights principles in the legal architecture of the Communities
and, now, the Union, which started in 1969 with the recognition by the European Court
of Justice (CJEU) that `fundamental human rights' are `enshrined in the general
principles of Community law and protected by the Court' (Case 29/69 Stauder [1969]
ECR 419).
The original Treaties did not mention human rights and the initial reaction of the
CJEU to human rights arguments was indifferent, if not hostile (for example Case 1/58
Stork [1959] ECR 17). This did not prevent ­ Stijn Smismans argues in the opening
chapter of this volume ­ the emergence of fundamental rights narratives which claim
retrospectively that human rights have always been part of the EEC/EU project. This
was achieved in two ways: first, human rights were linked to the ancestral foundational
justification for the EEC, namely that it was needed to ensure peace in Europe. Second,
human rights ...