*** MERCEDES CANDELA SORIANO (Ed.): Les droits de l'homme dans les politiques de l'Union européenne. De Boeck & Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482510 - Fax: 482519 - e-mail: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.larcier.com ). 2006, 283 pp. ISBN 2-8044-2078-7.
The European Union respects fundamental rights as guaranteed by the European Convention to Safeguard Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, and under the constitutional traditions common to member states. This statement comes from the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, as Mercedes Candela Soriano and Cédric Chenevière point out, and it seems pretty banal these days, but it bears witness to more than fifty years of history, starting from scratch, as is wonderfully portrayed in this book, taking a close look at the history of the protection of human rights in the EU legal system. As Michel Melchior explains in the preface, the book shows that the EU has for several years been involved in a pilot project going beyond the establishment of a single market and a single currency.
When it comes to human rights, huge progress has been made, to say the least. At the start of the European unification process, there were absolutely no human rights laws, explains Melchior Wathelet at the beginning of his article on the role played by the European Court of Justice in this connection. Should we be surprised at this? Not really, because at the start Europe took faltering steps, dealing with economic players rather than holders of rights and freedoms, not to mention the fact that the Court of Justice often had to point out point blank that under the EU Treaties, the EU institutions, including the Court of Justice, are there to apply EU law, not national law, including national laws governing fundamental rights. The former EU judge (of Belgian nationality) explains that two things changed this. Firstly, there was rising awareness of the potential conflicts between EU and national law. Secondly, some countries' constitutional courts (like Germany's for example) threatened to challenge the primacy of EU law where it failed to ensure comparable standards to those found in domestic law when it comes to protecting human rights. In consequence, four processes were gradually introduced to correct matters. The first process was initiated by the European Court of Justice itself in its case law, which moved human rights protection under the EU legal system from a situation where there were no basic laws or legal powers to decide on such issues to a situation where the Court of Justice announced that it had the powers to ensure protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the EU legal system, based mainly on a legal reference outside the EU itself, namely the European Convention of Human Rights. Does this mean that everything is working out for the best in the best of all Europes? Well, no. The former EU judge detects serious gaps - the Court of Justice does not have powers under intergovernmental pillars and cases may be decided differently at the European courts in Luxembourg from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg - but the author is at pains to minimise them. The second process he detects is changes to the treaties and derived law under the impulse of European Court of Justice case law. Mercedes Candela Soriano and Cédric Chenevière take a chronological approach to show the consolidation of case law and gradual progress. The third process is an EU 'bill of rights' which may become a European Charter of Fundamental Rights. The fourth is the move towards the EU joining the European Convention of Human Rights. Readers will have understood that the end is not yet in sight …
Against this double backdrop, the second part of the book opens with various authors studying the importance of, and respect for, human rights in internal politics. Mercedes Candela Soriano highlights the potential clashes between the free circulation of individuals and family regroupment laws and the anti-discrimination principle, while Catherine Smits and Denis Waelbroeck discern existing conflicts between competition policy and the respect for a fair trial, privacy rights, the right of domicile and correspondence. Olivier De Schutter raises the question of social Europe, recommending the introduction of an EU mechanism for the respect of social rights by the member states to reduce the risk of too great a gap among member states in this connection. Michel Pâques looks at the tough issues of the very existence of environmental law, the connection between the environment and fundamental rights and the role of the environment in EU law. The third part of the book looks at the human rights situation in EU foreign policies like the trade policy (Inge Govaere and Anneleen Van Bossuyt), the cooperation and development policy (Frank Hoffmeister) and existing tension between the protection of human rights and the development of cooperation under the EU's third pillar (Gilles de Kerchove). This is a remarkable reference book.
Michel Theys
*** JEAN-YVES CARLIER, ELSPETH GUILD (Eds.): L'avenir de la libre circulation des personnes dans l'U.E. - The Future of Free Movement of Persons in the EU. Etablissements Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5129842 - Fax: 5119477 - Internet: http://www.bruylant.be ). "du Centre des droits de l'homme de l'Université catholique de Louvain" series, No. 2. 2006, 322 pp, €72. ISBN 2-8027-2231-X.
Arising from a conference organised by the 'Réseau académique Odysseus d'études juridiques sur l'immigration et l'asile' (funded by the European Commission under the Odysseus Programme) and the 'Centre des droits de l'homme' and the 'Département de droit international' of the 'Université catholique de Louvain' in Belgium, this is a book of essays by specialists on the current situation and future prospects for the free circulation of individuals in the EU in the light of EU Directive 2004/38 on the right of citizens to freely move around and live anywhere in the EU. The issue is addressed from the angle of fundamental rights, social rights, the difference in treatment (which could even be called discrimination) of EU citizens when compared with people from outside the EU, family 'regroupment', the way citizens from the new EU member states are treated and the case law 'paradoxes' in the field of free circulation.
(PBo)
*** STEVE PEERS, NICOLA ROGERS (Eds.): EU Immigration and Asylum Law. Text and Commentary. Brill (2 Plantijnstraat, P.O Box 9000, NL-2300 PA Leiden. Tel: (31-71) 5353500 - Fax: 5317532 - Internet: http://www.brill.nl ). "Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in Europe" series, No. 12. 2006, 1,025 pp, €215. ISBN 90-04-15374-8.
Immigration and asylum are topics that politicians often discuss in Europe, perhaps to reassure a section of public opioin. Over and above this side of things, however, European immigration and asylum law is in fact a genuinely advanced legal construction, ranging from the announcement of generous principles to the regulating of highly detailed points of procedure and many measures put forward by the European Union have been adopted. This twelfth volume of a series wholly devoted to immigration and asylum issues is a kind of key to the whole, given its comprehensive, general character compared with earlier volumes dealing with more specific areas. It is a compilation of EU immigration and asylum law, starting with the Amsterdam Treaty that gave the EU the powers needed to for it to be able to take action across all immigration and asylum issues. The book goes much further, however. These legal texts are preceded by a summary, a description of the historical and legal framework and legal analysis. They are commented upon and there are essays by a series of authors on general trends in the institutions' work and more specific issues like the role of human rights in interpreting and applying immigration and asylum measures or specific legislation. The book's thirty-two chapters are divided into six sections on, for example, the legal background, an overview, visas and illegal immigration.
(FRo)
*** THIERRY MARIANI: Regards croisés sur l'intégration. Pour une immigration réussie. Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (Boutique de l'Assemblée nationale, 4 rue Aristide Briand, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 40636121 - Internet: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr ). "Rapport d'information", No. 3502. 2006, 150 pp, €5. ISBN 2-11-121674-7.
This newsletter provides very useful analysis of immigrant integration policies in five EU member states (Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden) and the United States and Canada, comparing and contrasting positive discrimination policies for minorities in order to discern areas which could inspire action elsewhere. Based on this, the French parliamentarian who wrote this newsletter makes ten suggestions on how to improve the integration of immigrants in France.
(MT)
*** THIERRY MARIANI: Politique européenne des visas: vers des consulats européens ? Délégation pour l'Union européenne de l'Assemblée nationale (see above). "Rapport d'information", No. 3764. 2007, 65 pp, €3-50. ISBN 2-11-121889-5.
Three changes to the visa system suggested by the European Commission are examined in this newsletter, namely the establishment of a database of biometrical information; an EU Visa Code; and the creation of common centres for processing visa applications. On the latter issue, the author calls for a sharing of resources among member states and the creation of genuine European consulates.
(MT)
*** JEAN-FRANCOIS VAN DROOGHENBROECK, STAN BRIJS: Un titre exécutoire européen. De Boeck & Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482510 - Fax: 482519 - e-mail: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.larcier.com ). "Les dossiers du Journal des tribunaux" series, No. 53. 2006, 360 pp. ISBN 2-8044-2056-6.
Prof. Jean-François van Drooghenbroeck (of the 'Université catholique de Louvain' in Belgium) and lawyer Stan Brijs make a systematic, in-depth examination in this book of a 2004 regulation creating an 'EU enforceable instrument' for unchallenged debts in order to lay down minimum rules to ensure the free circulation of legal decisions, transactions and certified documents throughout all member states. The new legal tool sounded the first ring of the death knell for the exequatur (certificate of enforceability) in the EU. As Prof. de Leval notes in the preface, the book is an admirable, theoretical and yet practical fresco of information vital to understanding good application of European rules of procedure as applied in the national law of Belgium. The authors demonstrate that the application rules for the regulation in Belgium can be criticised on certain counts and are of doubtful value in setting standards.
(MT)
*** THOMAS W. KALLERT, FRANCISCO TORRES-GONZÁLEZ (Eds.): Legislation on Coercive Mental Health Care in Europe. Legal Documents and Comparative Assessment of Twelve European Countries. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - E-mail: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.de ). 2006, 286 pp, €64. ISBN 3-631-55446-X.
Psychiatric systems have been undergoing comprehensive changes for a quarter of a century in Western Europe and for five to ten years in Eastern Europe. The changes are in the direction of increasing patient autonomy, improving patient living conditions, de-institutionalising the chronically ill and reducing the number of hospital beds. That said, compulsory internment of people in psychiatric hospitals due to the potential for the patient to harm him or herself or others and the need to provide care are rising throughout Europe. There is a wide range of different types of legislation and procedures governing the conditions of internment and treatment of people suffering from acute mental problems. As the editors of this book point out: 'The global inconsistency in legal frameworks and practices constitutes a major obstacle to any mutual European actions or policies.' The aim of this book is to try and fill these gaps. It arose from a research project, the "European Evaluation of Coercion in Psychiatry and Harmonization of Best Clinical Practice" funded by the EU's Fifth Framework Programme in 2002 to 2006. The research aims to assess national differences in coercive mental health care, the factors influencing such care, the outcomes and information on the legal basis on which such internment and treatment are made. The research looks at eleven EU member states (both old and new member states) and Israel. The structure for the essays is set by the editors (specialist psychiatrists). The essays start with a brief description of the country's general legal framework, going on deal with specific legal issues (including case law and codes of medical ethics). The codes of ethics are commented upon by the authors in terms of their value added and shortcomings and the way they impact on how patients are treated. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in the legal framework for internment in psychiatric units and how internment can be improved and harmonised at European level. Anyone, basically, interested in 'the quality of care for these persons who are at risk of having their autonomy, freedom, dignity and human rights infringed upon'.
(FRo)