Human Rights, Constitutionalism, and Integration: Iconography and Fetishism

Abstract

The advent of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has made it into the so-called constitution.¹ For many this is the center piece, indeed the only justification to call this treaty a constitution. It is appropriate that fundamental rights (German preference) or human rights (French preference) should be at the center of such constitutional discussion. But it is also appropriate that one does not allow the normative complexity of the trinity of human rights, constitutionalism, and integration to be obscured by our enthusiasms for all three. This chapter is meant, thus, to highlight some of the darker aspects of the ongoing debate.

The two articles by Joseph H. H. Weiler were originally published before the most recent constitutional developments in the legal order of the European Union. We have decided to retain them because of their theoretical and philosophical importance which transcends the specificity of the positive law on which they are based.