The New Draft Agreement on the EU Accession to the ECHR: Overcoming Luxembourg's Threshold

The European Union's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights has now been an ongoing project for decades, and questions have, therefore, rightfully emerged as to when and how it will be completed. After negotiations have been relaunched due to the Court of Justice's negative Opinion 2/13, it is now time to take stock and examine whether the new Draft Accession Agreement of 2023 will live up to another intense scrutiny by Luxembourg's judges. To investigate whether this will be the case, I discuss all problems highlighted by the CJEU, namely: the scope of accession and reservations made to the Convention; the co-respondent mechanism; the prior involvement procedure; inter-party cases; advisory opinions under Protocol No 16 to the Convention; the relationship between Article 53 ECHR and Article 53 of the Charter; the principle of mutual trust; and jurisdiction over the Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.