I thought the charter covers about the same areas as the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which Ireland must have signed in 1950 or so. Though those rights are interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights which is a different court, so even if the areas are the same the procedure is different.

Until now I have viewed getting the EU to accept a similar set of basic rights as the member-states does as a good thing, it incorporates the respect for those rights in an earlier phase in the EU-legislative process. Though now realising that the charter and the convention differs I find one very disturbing ban in the charter:

-- the prohibition of the reproductive cloning of human beings.

No army of clones? Where is the fun in that?

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