Resumen de Aida Torres Pérez. Conflicts of Rights in the European Union. A Theory of Supranational Adjudication

Constantin von der Groeben

• Aida Torres Pérez� Conflicts of Rights in the European Union. A Theory of Supranational Adjudication 1 is a comprehensive monograph dealing with one of the most striking normative challenges in the European Union (EU): the relationship between the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Member State courts in adjudicating fundamental rights.

  Torres Pérez presents the existing spheres of fundamental rights protection in the EU and provides a thorough analysis of the conflicts that emerge where these different spheres overlap. Her volume covers a number of different approaches and provides suggestions on how to deal with these conflicts and eventually proposes a normative model for ECJ adjudication through judicial dialogue based on comparative constitutional reasoning.

  The book is well structured in three parts. The first part gives a brief but thorough overview of the different systems of fundamental rights protection open to EU citizens. The author describes these different systems as the multilevel protection of rights in Europe and distinguishes between human rights protection through national constitutions (constitutional rights), through the ECJ (EU fundamental rights) and through the European Convention on Human Rights (convention rights). She outlines the conflicts that arise when these different systems of fundamental rights protection overlap. In general, such conflicts may arise when different rights are considered to be fundamental (at 10) and where community members disagree regarding fundamental rights interpretation (at 11), especially concerning sensitive issues like abortion or affirmative action (at 16). A potential for conflict exists whenever states act within a field of application of EU law which includes two types of situations: (i) state acts implementing EU law, and (ii) state acts derogating from the EU basic freedoms of movement (at 16). An example of a rights conflict between German courts and the ECJ is the �banana saga�, where the courts disagreed on �