I'm not sure this is true really, as long as a state remained a party to the ECHR itself. The UK didn't incorporate into domestic law until 1998 and RoI (which

I'm not sure this is true really, as long as a state remained a party to the ECHR itself. The UK didn't incorporate into domestic law until 1998 and RoI (which has a similarly "dualist" legal system of international and domestic law) 2003 - so it was possible to be a member of the EU before 2003 without doing this for sure. Also to add to the confusion, many EU member states have "monist" systems of international and domestic law and never have incorporated via statute because their legal systems allow enforcement of convention rights directly. But in some of these countries the practical effect and applicability of the ECHR is actually less than in the UK via the HRA.