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The Fundamental Rights Agency of the EU: a new panopticism

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 04:00 authored by Bal Sokhi-BulleyBal Sokhi-Bulley
The Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA) is the European Union’s newest, and only, human rights institution. The FRA represents a new way of speaking about rights in the European Union, using ‘governance’ language. It was not conceived as a traditional human rights monitoring body and the monitoring mission was actively abandoned in favour of an advisory one. This article examines how the FRA’s governance-related role actually reveals a type of monitoring best understood as ‘surveillance’ in a critical, Foucauldian sense. In exercising surveillance tactics, the FRA represents a model of panopti- cism which allows it to carry out a new form of government. This is an interesting observation not only because of the implications it has for a European Union that is striving to move away from government to- wards governance, but also because it challenges the assumption of the FRA as a ‘beacon on fundamental rights’ and a model of apolitical progress.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Human Rights Law Review

ISSN

1461-7781

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Issue

4

Volume

11

Page range

683-706

Department affiliated with

  • Law Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2016-11-14

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