In January 2012 the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) published a Factsheet containing a brief review on how the case-law of the ECtHR has been adjusting to cover some of the matters governed by EU law.
The European Union is not – yet[1] – a member of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (‘ECHR’)[2] , and accordingly its acts are not subject to the revision of the ECtHR. However, all the States which are members of the European Union are also members of the ECHR.
This has led to a situation where the ECtHR has been able to indirectly control (to a certain extent) the European Union, by controlling the acts of its Member States when transposing or applying EU law.
The factsheet published by the ECtHR contains an interesting summary of the evolution of the case-law of the ECtHR concerning this indirect control of the European Union.
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[1] The accession of the EU to the ECHR appears to be imminent. For more information, consider: Limante, A. ‘Draft EU to ECHR Accession Agreement: fitting Cinderella’s shoes for Gulliver’ (European Law Blog of King’s Students Law Review, January 29 2012) <http://kslr.org.uk/blogs/europeanlaw/2012/01/29/50/> accessed 8 March 2012
[2] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, art 32, 33 and 34 [1950] Amended by Protocols Nos. 11 [1998] and 14 [2010]. Available online: <http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/CONVENTION_ENG_WEB.pdf> accessed 08 March 2012