The position of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the legal order of the European Communities has been the subject of debate among legal scholars and politicians for at least 25 years.
One solution could be the adoption of a specific Community Charter of Human Rights. Another – a complementary approach – would be to make use of existing international instruments for the protection of human rights. As far back as 1979, the Commission of the European Communities proposed that the EC accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a proposal which was repeated in a Notice of November 1990.
With this position paper, the ICJ hopes to make a contribution to the current debate on accession of the Communities to the ECHR. Therefore, the scope of this paper will be limited to the protection of civil and political rights…
Europe-European Communities accession ECHR-position paper-1993-eng (full text in English, PDF)