Individual rights under Union law. A study on the relation between rights, obligations and interests in the case law of the Court of Justice

In the increasingly rights-centred legal system of the Union, the concept of individual rights is the source of growing confusion, and is more than ever in need of clarification. This thesis addresses the following questions. Firstly, how does the relation between rights, obligations and interests define the nature and function of individual rights in the Union’s legal order? Secondly, to what extent is the evolution of the Union’s constitutional framework challenging the original concept of individual rights? These questions are addressed essentially by tracing the development of the CJEU’s method for identifying individual rights and by mapping the relation between rights, obligations and interests that emerges from the case law. The basic characteristics of the concept of individual rights are inferred from this relation. The case law on individual rights is examined through the lens of the basic concept of individual rights, i.e. in the light of the relation between rights, obligations and interests. The study scrutinises cases in which this relation took shape and is still developing, looking in turn at the protection of economic, non-economic, and collective interests. Special attention is paid to the impact of the introduction of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU legal order as well as to the implications of the EU concept of rights for the requirement of an effective remedy