Book
Redressing Fundamental Rights Violations by the EU: The Promise of the ‘Complete System of Remedies'
In December 2024, the book Redressing Fundamental Rights Violations by the EU: The Promise of the ‘Complete System of Remedies', edited by Melanie Fink, was published fully open access with Cambridge University Press. The EU prides itself on having created a legal system that puts the individual at its centre. Individuals benefit from a broad range of fundamental rights that protect them against EU power. However, to vindicate their rights against the EU, they have to make use of a remedies system as old as the EU itself. Unsurprisingly, with EU power growing and evolving, it also is increasingly difficult to challenge. The book critically examines the EU's remedies system from a fundamental rights perspective, focusing on the EU's activities outside the realm of lawmaking. It maps the existing mechanisms private parties can avail themselves of to enforce their fundamental rights against the EU and discovers their unused potential. In doing so, it offers an important synthesis of the state of play and directions for reform in areas where the EU falls short of its promise to provide a 'complete system of remedies'.
- Author
- Melanie Fink
- Date
- 08 January 2025
Three members of the Europa Institute contributed to the book. Melanie Fink edited the book and, together with Clara Rauchegger (University of Innsbruck) and Joyce De Coninck (European University Institute), wrote a chapter that explores the action for damages as a remedy for fundamental rights violations committed by the EU. Especially considering the shortcomings of the other direct avenues to the CJEU, this mechanism is essential to ensure full compliance with the right to an effective remedy within the EU legal order. Its potential lies in its accessibility to individuals as well as its substantive flexibility that leaves significant room for the CJEU to craft a liability regime suitable to the EU. Yet the action for damages is currently not very effective as a fundamental rights remedy. This is largely due to two factors: the Court’s insistence on the sufficiently serious breach test and the limits to the establishment and enforcement of joint liability. To ensure full compliance with the right to an effective remedy, the CJEU may rely on Article 47 of the Charter and the approaches adopted in national liability laws to develop a fundamental rights specific regime for damages liability. Alternatively, a fundamental rights specific liability regime may also be achieved through secondary legislation.
Veronika Yefremova contributed a chapter on International Arbitration as a Supplementary Tool for Fundamental Rights Violations. The chapter discusses possible avenues to access to justice outside the EU judicial system. More specifically, it assesses the possibility of using arbitration as a means to seek redress in situations where the EU has acted in violation of fundamental rights. Although this dispute settlement method exists outside the system of remedies within the EU, it has been an accepted form of dispute resolution in several instances by the Court of Justice of the European Union and EU institutions. The European Commission, for instance, relies on arbitration within EU competition law. Therefore, this chapter investigates into how much legal room exists for arbitration within the EU legal system and what drawbacks this could bring for the EU judicial system.
Simona Demková contributed a chapter on The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Fundamental Rights, which examines the possibilities for individuals to access remedies against potential violations of their fundamental rights by EU actors, specifically EU agencies’ deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). Presenting the intricate landscape of the EU’s border surveillance, the chapter sheds light on the prominent role of Frontex in developing and managing AI systems, including automated risk assessments and drone-based aerial surveillance. These two examples are used to illustrate how the EU?s AI-powered conduct endangers fundamental rights protected under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Risks emerge for privacy and data protection rights, non-discrimination, and other substantive rights, such as the right to asylum. In light of these concerns, the chapter then examines the possibilities to access remedies by first considering the impact of AI uses on the procedural rights to good administration and effective judicial protection, before clarifying the emerging remedial system under the AI Act in its interplay with the EU’s existing data protection framework. Lastly, the chapter sketches the evolving role of the European Data Protection Supervisor, pointing out the key areas demanding further clarifications in order to fill the remedial gaps.
The book is available open access here: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009373814