The Revised Draft Agreement on the Accession of the EU to the ECHR: Third Time’s a Charm?

Abstract

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(2), 641-646 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. Preparing the ground for another attempt? The judicial dialogue between the CJEU and ECtHR since Opinion 2/13 – III. Negotiating the Revised Draft Accession Agreement. – IV. Appraising the Revised Draft Accession Agreement. - V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) A revised Draft Agreement on the Accession of the EU to the ECHR (revised DAA) was agreed upon in Mach 2023, after three years of (re-)negotiations in the shadow of Opinion 2/13. The contributors to this Special Section of European Papers analyse and assess the revised DAA. Once the EU side has finalised the EU-internal rules that will interface with the accession agreement, the CJEU will for a third time give its opinion on whether an envisaged accession to the ECHR is compatible with the EU treaties. This Special Section opens with an analysis of the immediate context of the negotiations and the accession process: the case law of the CJEU and the ECtHR since Opinion 2/13. Then, some of the key negotiators analyse the negotiations leading up to the revised DAA. Thereafter, three key aspects of the revised DAA are assessed: the co-respondent mechanism, the effect of Opinion 1/17 on the revised agreement, and the yet unresolved Common Foreign and Security Policy issue. The final contribution concludes by interrogating the overarching issues of trust and mistrust, which permeated Opinion 2/13, the accession (re-)negotiations, and the final text of the revised DAA alike.

Keywords

• eu accession to the echr
• negotiations
• draft accession agreement
• opinion 2/13
• court of justice of the european union
• european court of human rights