Every country in the EU has promised to guarantee the human rights of everyone on their territory. Many countries protect human rights through their national constitutions – unless you’re too British to have a constitution, in which case human rights is a political football. The EU has also developed its own internal rules on human rights: the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights - we will get to this in a future article!

Even when human rights are not listed in national laws, they are protected by international law. All countries that are in the EU have joined the European Convention on Human Rights. A country is not allowed to join the EU unless it first joins the European Convention.

You always have somewhere to turn to

In addition, all EU member countries have also joined several human rights treaties created by governments through the United Nations. These include: the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the UN Convention against Torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

So if you’re in the EU, you will always have somewhere to turn to for human rights protection. You might have to wait a long time. Your government might not take any notice. But there will at least be someone to complain to.

A ‘treaty’, ‘convention’ or ‘covenant’ is similar to a contract: it is a legally binding international agreement between countries, and/or international organisations (like the EU).

The EU and the ECHR

The EU itself has not made a habit of joining human rights treaties. This is not necessarily the EU’s fault. Traditionally, human rights treaties were only open to countries, not international organisations, to join. In 2010 the EU joined the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is the first time that an international organisation has joined a human rights treaty.

The EU has been in the process of joining the European Convention on Human Rights for several years. And you will probably be waiting a long while before that finally happens - at least until after the UK holds its referendum on EU membership in 2016 or 2017.

You see, the EU doesn’t want to give the ‘Out’ campaign more ammunition to scare the UK public than it already has. Imagine the UK newspaper headlines: European Union joins European Convention on Human Rights. That’s a concept that contains so much Europe it risks melting the brains of a nation that still refers to the landmass on the other side of the English Channel as ‘the continent’.