ABSTRACT
The substance of the Directive basically suggests that it was intended not only to harmonise the Refugee Convention's application in the European Union (EU), but also for the first time to codify the system of subsidiary protection in international law. There are few data on which to base an analysis of the role of the Refugee Convention in the EU legal system but their content is clear: the signatory is not the EU but its Member States, which ratified it from different dates. In theory, powers could be transferred from the Member States to the EU in respect of the Refugee Convention in the same way, according to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), as with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Originally, Community law contained no mention of fundamental human rights and their later inclusion was due entirely to the 'juridical' work of the ECJ.
