Human Rights in the New European Union

Abstract

The European Community, and now the European Union, has increasingly talked about rights, and more and more about human or fundamental rights. The more it has talked about these rights, the louder has been the surrounding criticism of its efforts. Most recently, it has been repeatedly suggested that the new Europe is not taking rights ‘seriously’ (Coppel 8c O’Neill, 1992). In this chapter, I want first to discuss the state of human rights in European law and to assess the veracity of these critiques. In the second section I then want to suggest some alternative approaches to human rights which might be more appropriate and perhaps more workable in the new Europe.