Expert Seminar on Fundamental Rights in Europe

The Turku Law School organized an expert seminar under the title ‘The Interplay between the European Human Rights Regimes: National Constitutions, European Union, and the European Convention on Human Rights’ on 27 May 2014.

The seminar brought together national and European judges, academics and civil servants to discuss how Europe’s different fundamental rights regimes relate to each other, and whether the resulting overall system for human rights protection is a coherent one.

The seminar tackled questions such as: Is the relationship between the different human rights regimes cooperative or competitive, and what kinds of consequences flow form this? How are their scopes of application demarcated? How are conflicts between them dealt with? Are the citizens well served by the overall system, or is there an unproductive inflation of regimes? How will the greater use of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by the European Court of Justice and the EU accession to the ECHR alter the picture?

The speakers, discussants and commentators included Judge Thomas von Danwitz, Judge Allan Rosas, Professor Tuomas Ojanen, Professor Jukka Snell, Associate Professor Juha Lavapuro, and Mr Janne Salminen. The event was chaired by Professor Elina Pirjatanniemi.