Individual, institutional and collective vigilance in protecting fundamental rights in the EU: lessons from the Roma

  • In the summer of 2010, French authorities organized the systematic dismantling of illegal Roma settlements. This resulted in the departure of a large number of Roma-EU citizens from France, as well as a significant dispute between France and the European Commission. While the dispute raises a number of issues of substantive EU law, it also illustrates some important strengths and weaknesses in the system of fundamental rights protection in EU law. This article takes these events as a test case to illustrate that tackling complex problems of human rights protection in the EU requires a hybrid approach in which individual and institutional enforcement mechanisms are complemented by a third level of collective vigilance. While ever since Van Gend & Loos the EU has built a comprehensive system of individual and institutional remedies for the enforcement of EU law, social and political factors may limit their usefulness for vulnerable minorities. The vigilance of collective actors such as networks, NGOs, trade unions and agencies may offer a useful additional layer of protection where they are well-integrated within the classic system of remedies for fundamental rights protection in the EU.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Author(s):Mark DawsonORCiD, Elise Muir
Parent Title (English):Common Market Law Review
ISSN:0165-0750
Publication year:2011
First Page:751
Last Page:775
Related URL:https://www.kluwerlawonline.com/abstract.php?area=Journals&id=COLA2011031
Release Date:2015/08/17
Volume:48
Issue:3
Licence of document (German):Metadaten / metadata
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