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Peers, Steve --- "Immigration, asylum and human rights in the European Union" [2017] ELECD 984; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 439

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 20

Section Title: Immigration, asylum and human rights in the European Union

Author(s): Peers, Steve

Number of pages: 12

Abstract/Description:

The issues of immigration and asylum are usually linked closely to human rights law, and the EU’s legal order is no exception. Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, which both enhanced the legal effect of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and extended the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in this field, human rights have played a large part in the development of EU immigration and asylum law. The enhanced legal effect of the Charter is complemented by the EU’s ‘general principles of law’, which were the main source of EU human rights rules before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, and which are still referred to separately in Article 6(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Moreover, Article 6(2) TEU, as inserted by the Treaty of Lisbon, requires the EU to become party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This latter step has not yet taken place, for although a draft treaty to this effect has been agreed, the CJEU subsequently ruled that this treaty was incompatible with EU law, and negotiations to revise the draft treaty have not yet got underway. In the meantime, the ECHR does not bind the EU as such, although it impacts upon EU law to the extent that it is taken into account in the context of the Charter.