Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as a fundamental instrument of the European law – does this statement still remain valid?

Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is often referred as a fundamental instrument of the European law. The following study, through a detailed description of the circumstances of creation of the Convention, its normative content, enforcement mechanism and the current context in which it is in force, seeks to demonstrate whether the above statement remains valid in the current political and legal reality. It is true that in the Convention sovereign states accepted for the first time legal obligations to secure the classical human rights and freedoms and – what is particularly relevant – to allow all individuals to bring applications against the state, leading to a specially founded international judicial body finding them in breach. This was a crucial, revolutionary step in the evolution of the international law that, for centuries, had been based on such deeply entrenched foundations as the ideas that the settlement of the freedoms and rights of individuals was within the domestic jurisdiction of states and that individuals were not subjects of rights in this law. The Convention has thus generated the effective enforcement mechanism in the world, which contribution to the setting of standards for the protection of human rights and freedoms is unrivalled. However, it cannot be lost from one’s sight that currently the presence of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in the European legal space and the weakness of the Council of Europe, under of which auspices the European Convention on Human Rights was adopted, manifesting itself in the fact that it associates a large number of countries with quite diverse political and legal culture and the standards of democracy, make the practical importance of the Convention be the subject of constant verification.

The Issue of Supplementing the Ratification Act with Additional Content (art. 89 of the Polish Constitution)

The authors point to arguments of legal interpretation of the Constitution that would justify the possibility of including additional provisions in the statute agreeing to ratify the international agreement (Article 89(1) of the Polish Constitution). A condition for such an extension would be the direct link between the additional content and the implementation of the international agreement and the possibility of adopting additional content in the ordinary legislative procedure. Such provisions could not violate the provisions of the Polish Constitution. The authors also point to non-legal arguments that could justify such action by the legislature in a particular situation. However, they favour the uniqueness of such a solution and its embedding in a specific systemic context.

Place of International Law in the Legal System of Ukraine

An important factor in shaping the legal system of an independent democratic state is to define the place of its international obligations in the domestic legal system. International law binds states that are bound by its norms governing their cooperation within the international community. Therefore, it is necessary to refer to the problem of the relation of international law to internal law by analyzing the regulations of the Ukrainian legislation and the international conventions concluded by it. The subject of the analysis are the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine of 1996 and the Act on International Agreements of 2004 as well as the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, to which the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic acceded in 1986 and to which Ukraine is now a party.