In this contribution human rights will be considered not simply as conditions for an intercultural society such as the European Union but as preconditions, or, in other words, human rights will be conceptualized as constitutive and not as causal or moral conditions for 'European Integration'. This means that the level of the analysis is epistemological rather than methodological, though at many points I will indicate the consequences of this approach for the way comparative law can be practiced, if it is to contribute to an intercultural 'area of freedom, security and justice' (art. 29 of the Treaty of the European Union). In par. 2 I will reflect on the use of the term European, that refers to much more than a geographical territory or an economic market. In par. 3 I will question the idea of European Integration, which I will elucidate in par. 4 by a conceptualization of 'the intercultural' as a shifting fluidium of diversities. In par. 5 I will move to the constitutive meaning of human rights for a European 'Rechtsstaat' and in par. 6 I will conclude this exercise by pointing out the possible contribution of comparative law for the ongoing institutionalization of human rights as preconditions for an intercultural European area of freedom, security and justice.