The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the case of race discrimination

Abstract:

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU undoubtedly represents a significant advance in the evolution of the EU human rights discourse. This comment considers that advance from the perspective of protecting against discrimination based on race and ethnicity, and challenges the legitimacy of a human rights instrument founded on a nationality based distinction. This comment looks to the way in which reliance on that distinction undermines the Charter's import for racial and ethnic minorities in the EU, since discrimination on the basis of nationality afflicts racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately, and since there is considerable overlap between these forms of discrimination. The stark distinction between the catalogue of rights afforded all persons, and those additionally afforded EU citizens is also critiqued for the way in which it weakens the equality norm underpinning the Charter. Thus it is argued that for normative and practical reasons, neither the Charter's principle of equality nor the EU human rights discourse should replicate the Third Country National/EU National distinction.