Current Situation

It is no longer possible to properly understand the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”) without also considering its interaction with EU law, the other source of European fundamental rights.

What we see today is indeed a high level of interaction between the Convention and EU law. This is mainly due to the following two factors:

  1. An overlap between the scope of EU Law and that of the Convention
  2. The fact that the Convention and EU Law have many fundamental rights in common.

The following PPP provides a schematic overview of the legal situation in this respect.

As a result, many situations coming under EU law are also governed by the Convention, and vice versa, and therefore require the domestic authorities of the EU member States to combine those two sources of fundamental rights. The correct approach to this reality is therefore a global approach which considers the mutual impact of the Convention and EU law rather than examining them separately, as is too often the case.

Find here the answers to some key questions arising in this connection and some recent relevant case law.