Promovendus: Mw. I. Gambardella

Promotores: Mw. Dr. E. Muir, C. Brire

Duur: 1/11/2022 - 31/10/2026

Abstract:

The European Union protects fundamental rights through a variety of sources, including the Charter of fundamental rights and the general principles of Union law enshrined by the Court of Justice. However, unlike other national or international legal systems, EU fundamental rights do not bind the Member States in all situations. A link to EU law must be demonstrated in order to be able to invoke these rights before the Court of Justice of the EU. The conditions under which a situation is sufficiently covered by EU law are still unclear and the CJEU is continuing to shape its jurisprudence on the matter. While the debate on the scope of fundamental rights continues to evolve, EU policy-making has known important transformations, especially in the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis and more recently the Covid-19 crisis. Besides the traditional legal approach, non-traditional forms of EU legal sources have emerged, such as EU funding, advanced forms of cooperation, blended hard-soft law acts and atypical international agreements. These forms of non-traditional EU law instruments may bring new situations within the scope of EU law in order to assess their compatibility with EU fundamental rights. The existing uncertainties characterising the justiciability of EU fundamental rights are thus increasingly relevant when confronted with the diversification of EU law sources. Ilarias research aims to analyse the phenomenon of diversification of EU law sources and its impact on the definition of the scope of EU law that is relevant to trigger the application of EU fundamental rights.