Schutter (de) Olivier

This author's articles

• Promoting and protecting fundamental rights in the EU: The role of national courts, of human rights defenders and of independent national human rights institutions

  18 December 2007
  This briefing note defines the contribution of courts and independent human rights institutions (including both ombudsperson and national human rights institutions) to the protection and promotion of fundamental rights at the national level, and how the tasks these actors fulfill fit into the framework of the protection of fundamental rights in the EU legal order.

• Promoting and protecting fundamental rights in the EU: The relations between the European Convention of Human Rights, the European Charter and the EU member states constitutions

  18 December 2007
  This briefing note examines the consequences which result from the fact that the same rights and freedoms, sometimes with identical or almost identical formulations, are guaranteed in the European Convention on Human Rights, in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and in national constitutions of the EU Member States. These rights and freedoms, in addition, are considered to belong to the general principles of law which the European Court of Justice ensures respect for in the field of application of EU Law, in accordance with Article 6(2) of the EU Treaty. The briefing note examines the problems which, according to certain commentators, such coexistence may create. Two sets of problems are considered.