Human rights as a basis for justice in the European union

Abstract

Justice is a contested concept. A more graspable understanding of it requires the context of ‘injustice’. As such, a main theme of this paper is the disjunction between, on the one hand, strong reactions to injustice and a desire for some effective dimension to the EU, some normative adhesive that might bind the EU as an ethical entity and on the other, the very great difficulty in identifying an enforceable concept of justice in an EU that continues to be driven by a market mentality. This paper also argues that it is the very sui generis, supranational status of the EU that creates particular obstacles to the realisation of a shared sense of justice. Due to this structural limitation, it is argued that any agreed concept of justice will remain minimalist. However, human rights remain a powerful symbolic and actual force for justice and a better focus for its achievement.