Implementation of the provisions of the Agreement on Association with EU requires Ukraine to master human rights standards of this international formation. The system of legal protection of human rights in EU law has come a long way of its formation and development: from the initial denial of necessity to recognise such rights to the adoption of a separate international act – the EU Charter, endowed with the legal force of the founding treaties of the EU. However, despite the considerable history of its formation and development, there are no grounds to state that the human rights protection system in the EU is now fully formed and does not need significant improvement. The European legislator not confined to giving the EU Charter the force of the founding treaties, but also included in the Lisbon Treaty the obligation of the EU to accede to the ECHR, which in itself created a difficult situation of legal dualism of the current and perspective regulation of the status of human rights and freedoms standards in the EU. On the one hand, the norms of the EU Charter and the standards established by the Court of Justice of the European Union today have the highest legal force in the legal system of this international formation; on the other, under the obligation of EU accession to the ECHR, the ECHR, which has been applied in the relevant ECtHR practice, will have a knack for defining European human rights standards in the EU legal system. For Ukraine, the answer to the question what trends in the legal protection of human rights prevail in the EU will influence the solution of the problem of finding optimal legal instruments for approximation of the Ukrainian legislation to the EU law. Therefore, the article explores the peculiarities of the establishment and development of a human rights institute in the European Union. The norms of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as the main legal instrument for guaranteeing human rights in this formation were analysed, as well as the prospects of improving the legal guarantee of rights and freedoms in the European Union with a view to the preparation of the Treaty on European Union Accession to the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

Keywords: human rights, European Union, human rights principles, Charter of Fundamental Rights