Title: Conflicts Between Fundamental Rights or Conflicting Fundamental Rights Vocabularies? An Analysis of Diverging Uses of 'Fundamental Rights' in the Context of International and European Trade Law.
Abstract: Discussions about different modalities to deal with conflicts between 'fundamental rights' presuppose a common understanding of which norms form the category of 'fundamental rights'. Human rights analysts typically approach this issue only implicitly, by exclusively referring to human rights treaties, legislation, and specialised jurisprudence. Moreover, human rights analysis usually takes as common ground that these 'fundamental rights' provide for an analytical framework that is comprehensive and, because of their indivisibility and interdependence, need to be pursued as a 'package' in any given context. Drawing upon European and international trade law, this chapter points out that this understanding of the content and nature of 'fundamental rights' is not the only significant one. Recent ILO initiatives tailored to respond to the realities of WTO-driven trade liberalisation short-list a number of human rights norms on grounds of proclaimed particular characteristics in an economic context. Moreover, European and international trade law scholarship and jurisprudence sometimes (appear to propose to) add legal norms to the list of 'fundamental rights'. Apart from conceptual relevance, such a reality of parallel fundamental rights lists clearly also has significant practical implications. What is accepted to be added to, dropped from, or emphasised on the 'fundamental rights' list directly impacts modalities to deal with conflicts between 'them'. It is argued that if human rights experts aim to guard their own understanding of 'fundamental rights', engagement with alternative conceptual thinking and careful consideration of alternative legal contexts when suggesting practical solutions is required. The discussion is structured as follows: first the terms of the varying uses of 'fundamental rights' by human rights experts, international labour lawyers and trade lawyers will be identified (section 2). Then some conceptual and methodological implications of this Babylonian situation are highlighted with regard to the practical situation of solving conflicts between 'fundamental rights' in the legal setting of a trade court (section 3). A conclusion will wrap up the discussion (section 4).
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot