Weatherill, Stephen --- "The internal market and EU fundamental rights" [2017] ELECD 980; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 364

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: Chapter 16

Section Title: The internal market and EU fundamental rights

Author(s): Weatherill, Stephen

Number of pages: 16

Abstract/Description:

The establishment of an internal market, defined by Article 26 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) as ‘an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of the Treaties’, is an end to which the European Union is committed by Article 3(3) EU. But this is merely one element on a long list, and it appears only after the first paragraph of Article 3 has projected the ambition far beyond the economic sphere, by stating the Union’s aim ‘is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples’. Moreover, the Treaty of Lisbon embeds respect for fundamental rights at the very heart of the project. According to Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) the Union ‘is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rules of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities’. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, initially proclaimed in non-binding form, has acquired binding effect by virtue of Article 6 TEU, which furthermore directs that the EU shall accede to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and, mimicking the long-standing jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, that fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the Convention and as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the member states, ‘shall constitute general principles of the Union’s law’.