This article challenges the classic narrative of the EU�s engagement with human rights by comparing today�s system to the long-forgotten European Community human rights framework proposed in the early 1950s. Although the EU�s current system is conventionally understood as robust and as the acme of EU progress on human rights protection, it is weaker than the 1950s framework in three respects: its monitoring of human rights in member states, its relationship to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the double standard between internal and external human rights policies.