Publisher's Synopsis
The Societas Iuris Publici Europaei (SIPE) held its Eighth Congress 2011 in Lisbon. The Eighth Congress followed Congresses at Crete, Rome, Vienna, Gottingen, Sevilla, Budapest and Strasbourg. The central topic of the Congress was "The Accession of the European Union to the European Convention of Human Rights". As is well known, the issue of the EU Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights is not a new one. It has been the subject of debate many times among scholars and politicians. While the Commission endorsed the accession in many instances, the ECJ argued in its opinion of 28 March 1996 that accession could be brought only by way of Treaty amendment. The next steps of the accession issue are well known: initially the EU accession to the ECHR was optional according to the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Then, it became a legal obligation under the Treaty of Lisbon - as it had also been under the failed Constitutional Treaty. The multi-layered and complicated issues of the EU accession to the ECHR and its importance for the human rights protection in Europe were discussed intensively by experts from both a theoretical and practical background for two days in Lisbon. The present volume puts the revised editions of the presentations together with the contributions presented in the "Workshop of Junior Scholars", a forum, in which qualified young academics present and discuss their own papers within the theme of the Congress. The contributions are published in the respective language used for each presentation, which may be one of the three "official" languages of the SIPE, namely English, French and German.
