This book provides an analysis of key approaches to rule of law oversight in the EU and identifies deeper theoretical problems.

The supranational law of the European Union represents a uniquely powerful, far-reaching, and controversial instance of the growth of international legal governance, one that has forever altered the political and legal landscape of its Member States. The EU has attracted significant attention from political scientists, economists, and lawyers who have analysed its polity and constructed theoretical models of the integration process. Yet it has been almost entirely neglected by analytic philosophers, and the philosophical tools that have been developed to analyse and evaluate the Union are still in their infancy. This book brings together legal philosophers, political philosophers, and EU legal academics in the service of developing the philosophical analysis of EU law. In a series of original and complementary essays they bring their varied disciplinary expertise and theoretical perspectives to bear on central issues facing the Union and its law. Combining both abstract thought in legal and political philosophy and more tangible theoretical work on specific legal issues, the essays in this volume make a significant contribution to developing work on the philosophical foundations of EU law, and will engender further debate between philosophers, political philosophers, and EU legal academics. They will be of interest to all those engaged in understanding the nature and purpose of this unique legal entity.

This book represents the first attempt to examine how EU fundamental rights are protected and enforced by EU governing bodies.

The Nature of International Law provides a comprehensive analytical account of international law within the prototype theory of concepts.

The orthodox view is that rights complement democracy. This book critically examines this view in the context of EU fundamental rights, specifically in situations where EU law requires member states to respect EU fundamental rights. It first sets out a legal theoretical account of how human rights can complement democracy. It argues that they can do so only if they are understood as both the conditions for the democratic process, and the outcome of such a democratic process. In light of this legal theoretical account of human rights, this book examines the demands which the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) imposes on the national orders in respect of EU fundamental rights. The conclusion reached is that the demands which EU fundamental rights impose on national legal orders entail a cost for the democratic legitimacy of those legal orders. Ultimately, accepting the demands of the CJEU in respect of EU fundamental rights may require the national legal order to abandon its commitment to protecting the human rights which are the foundation of the national legal order’s very legitimacy.

Ten years after the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union became part of binding primary law, and twenty years since its adoption, this volume assess the application of the EU Charter in the Member States. How often, and in particular by which actors, is the EU Charter invoked at the national level? In what type of situations is it used? Has the approach of national courts in general, and of constitutional courts in particular, to EU law to EU fundamental rights law changed following the entry into force of the Charter? What sort of interplay does the Charter generate with the national bill of rights and the European Convention? Is the life with the Charter on the national level a harmonious 'praktische Konkordanz' or rather a messy 'ménage à trois'? These and other questions are discussed in the four parts that form the book. Part I is dedicated to the normative foundations. Part II sets out Member States' Perspectives, providing a structured, in-depth account of the Charter's operation in 16 different Member States. Part III provides a detailed evaluation of selected rights contained within the Charter. Part IV synthesises the materials presented up to that point to develop a series of broader perspectives, looking to discover underlying lessons about the relationship between EU fundamental rights law and national legal systems.