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This important new book explores the issues underlying current and longstanding concerns over the 'creeping competences' of the European Union. A fundamental question since the early origins of the European Union in the functionally limited economic, coal and steel and atomic energies communities of the 1950s has been the legitimate scope and limits of its powers of action, and the relationship between these powers and those of its component Member States. This issue, which centres on the legitimacy of different levels and fora of government within a complex and growing economic and political entity, has been brought to prominence again by the constitutional agenda set by the European Council at Nice. Specifically, it has been highlighted by the call for a more precise delimitation of competences between the EU and the Member States. This book seeks to identify some of the issues of democracy and legitimacy which underlie the anxiety of state and sub-state entities over the 'creeping competences' of the EU on the one hand, and the questions of capacity and interdependence which pull in the direction of supranational and transnational action and governance on the other.
Drawing on a number of recent controversies over matters such as public health and tobacco advertising, and the scope of the EU's human rights powers in the wake of the Charter, the book examines the problems inherent in an attempt to draw up a clear list of competences. It is suggested that the crucial issues are those of institutional design and constitutional culture - including a renewed commitment to a better articulated notion of subsidiarity - rather than definitional fiat.
This important new book explores the issues underlying current and longstanding concerns over the 'creeping competences' of the European Union. A fundamental question since the early origins of the European Union in the functionally limited economic, coal and steel and atomic energies communities of the 1950s has been the legitimate scope and limits of its powers of action, and the relationship between these powers and those of its component Member States. This issue, which centres on the legitimacy of different levels and fora of government within a complex and growing economic and political entity, has been brought to prominence again by the constitutional agenda set by the European Council at Nice. Specifically, it has been highlighted by the call for a more precise delimitation of competences between the EU and the Member States. This book seeks to identify some of the issues of democracy and legitimacy which underlie the anxiety of state and sub-state entities over the 'creeping competences' of the EU on the one hand, and the questions of capacity and interdependence which pull in the direction of supranational and transnational action and governance on the other.
Drawing on a number of recent controversies over matters such as public health and tobacco advertising, and the scope of the EU's human rights powers in the wake of the Charter, the book examines the problems inherent in an attempt to draw up a clear list of competences. It is suggested that the crucial issues are those of institutional design and constitutional culture - including a renewed commitment to a better articulated notion of subsidiarity - rather than definitional fiat.
Introduction
1: The Effectiveness of Human Rights
2: Mobilization for Gender Equality in Pakistan and the Role of
International Human Rights
3: The Activation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities in Argentina
4: Using International Human Rights Law to Mobilize for Children's
Rights and Reproductive Rights in Ireland
5: The Past and Future of Human Rights
Gráinne de Búrca is Florence Ellinwood Allen Professor of Law at
NYU. Previously, she held tenured posts at Harvard Law School,
Fordham Law School, the European University Institute in Florence,
Italy, and Oxford University. Her fields of research are European
Union law and international human rights law. She is co-editor of
the Oxford University Press series Oxford Studies in European Law,
and co-author of the leading OUP textbook EU Law. She is
co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Constitutional
Law (ICON) and serves on the editorial board of the American
Journal of International Law, Global Constitutionalism and Legal
Studies. She was a
President of the International Society of Public Law ICON-S from
2015-2018, and is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
In this refreshing and inspirational book, Gráinne de Búrca
directly confronts human rights sceptics among scholars from across
the political spectrum to demonstrate that, in practice, human
rights have maintained an extraordinary vigour in motivating and
supporting grassroots mobilization against political repression and
illiberalism. With her well-known skill in developing powerful and
innovative arguments, she builds on the actual practice of human
rights activists to illuminate the dynamism of the human rights
project, activated and shaped through both its moral appeal, and
the meaning and impact given to it by affected groups.
*Sandra Fredman, Professor of Law, Oxford University*
At last a book that makes the case for human rights and does it
with great weight and authority. Gráinne de Búrca is proud to
believe in human rights and supplies powerful reasons for our doing
so too. Fresh and scholarly, de Búrcas account is a bracing change
from the negativity that too often infuses academic treatments of
the field.
*Conor Gearty, Professor of Human Rights Law, LSE*
This book comes at the right time in a world that looks too grim.
Grainne de Búrca provides grounded empirical assessments of the
work that human rights movements do through structuring modes of
interacting across national boundaries. De Búrca offers a nuanced
appreciation of a complex world full of "mixed and partial"
achievements, often met with backlash. De Búrca demonstrates that,
when politics permits, the processes of ratifying, reporting, and
arguing about what human rights commitments mean can engender new
opportunities to lessen (not erase) modes of subordination.
*Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School*
Finally we have a thoughtful book about human rights which captures
the vibrancy and successes of the diverse human rights movement.
Anyone who wants to understand the real rather than the imagined
world of human rights should read de Búrca's study. She makes it
clear that struggles for social justice will continue to coalesce
around the language of human rights for a long time to come.
*Andrew Clapham, Professor of International Law, Graduate Institute
of International and Development Studies*
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