FRA as a meeting place of law and social sciences

This chapter describes the process of the ‘law looking outwards’, and the gradual rapprochement that has taken place between the law and social sciences. This has occurred in many spheres of law, but is relatively new to the human rights sphere. Meanwhile, it has become a major characteristic of FRA’s approach. The authors assert that there are at least four ways in which this approach can add value to policy debates at EU level and in the Member States when applying EU law. These four benefits of a closer interdisciplinary cooperation are: (1) social sciences can reveal facts that hitherto have not been considered salient; (2) social sciences can help enhance legislative effectiveness; (3) social sciences can make lawyers more strongly aware of the need to park their political and cultural baggage; and (4) closer interdisciplinary cooperation, as in the case of FRA, can help avoid unnecessary inter-institutional competition, particularly at the EU level. Looking back upon the first decade of its existence, the authors conclude that FRA has made generous use of the advantages of interdisciplinarity