EU Law and Member States’ International Law Member States Agreements as Union Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 440-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Waibel

On March 29, 2017, the U.K. Government triggered Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) on withdrawal from the European Union following a referendum on June 23, 2016 in which 51.89 percent voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. As a hybrid provision, the much-discussed withdrawal provision in Article 50 TEU is part of EU law yet also anchored in public international law. Although the European Union is a unique, supranational organization that creates rights for individuals that are directly effective in national law, its member states created the European Union based on traditional treaties under international law.


Author(s):  
Michael Ioannidis

This chapter focuses on cases where the presumption that all Member States are effective in enforcing their law does not hold: when Member States show structural, persistent, and cross-sector ineffectiveness in enforcing their law. Borrowing from literature on international law as well as insights from the rich research on EU compliance, this chapter develops three main points. The first is that, on some occasions, the EU might face a similar challenge with that of international law when dealing with weak states. To describe such cases of structural ineffectiveness, this chapter develops the concept of ‘weak member’. The second point is that these problems can be captured through the lens of EU constitutional law, and more specifically as Rule of Law problems. The last point is to present some of the measures taken during the Eurozone crisis to respond to this type of problem with regard to Greece.


Author(s):  
Lorna Woods ◽  
Philippa Watson ◽  
Marios Costa

This chapter examines the Court of Justice's (CJ) case law on the supremacy of European Union (EU) law over national laws of Member States, analyses the question of priorities between directly effective EU law and domestic law, and also looks at this problem from the perspective of the national courts. It argues that the CJ's introduction of the notion of supremacy was instrumental in providing a view of the Union as a body which went beyond what was normal for an international law organization. The chapter also describes how Member States developed their own constitutional rules as a response to EU law.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 320-360
Author(s):  
Adrian Dumitrescu-Pasecinic

Abstract In order to enter the Banking Union, non-euro EU Member States must ‘step outside’ the EU legal order and the Union’s institutional framework, and resort to unilateral instruments of public international law. If the intergovernmental method has advanced the alternative project of integration based on voluntary policy, international unilateralism is seen as a similar integration technique based on the voluntary action of non-euro Member States, ie a tool for deeper integration that appears as a variation of intergovernmentalism. This article focuses on the constitutional deficiencies caused by the choice of unilateral instruments in the institutional set-up of a close cooperation arrangement in the Single Supervisory Mechanism. At first sight, leaving the EU legal order and entering the world of international law opens entirely new perspectives for the participating Member States. The possible attraction is escaping the constraining institutional framework of EU law. However, the international law route poses significant constitutional challenges vis-à-vis compatibility with the EU law.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-106
Author(s):  
Davor Petrić

This contribution reflects on the EU law side of the story of Slovenia and Croatia’s border dispute. It discusses some of the key parts of the Advocate General’s opinion and the Court of Justice’s judgment in this case, including the issue of the scope of EU law, the status of international law in EU law, the interpretation of international law for the purposes of EU law adjudication, and the rule of law dimensions of the border dispute between the two neighbouring Member States. It also offers some general remarks on the nature of legal scholarship that can be read as a response to some of the academic commentary of this case.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Pavlos Eleftheriadis

This chapter introduces the central legal and political interpretations of the European Union (EU). The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) suggests a federalist legal account when it speaks of EU law as a ‘new legal order’ and as ‘autonomous’ from international law and the law of the member states. This doctrine has met with resistance by the courts of the member states, which have refused to apply EU law without reference to their domestic constitution. The courts’ views can be seen as either a ‘constitutional’ approach, which we find in Neil MacCormick’s ‘pluralism’ under international law, or in the ‘pluralism’ defended by Mattias Kumm, Neil Walker, and others. But the general legal architecture of the EU is not only a theoretical but also a political problem. These legal interpretations correspond to rival political approaches, namely ‘federalism’, ‘statism’, and a new view proposed in this book ‘internationalism’. The most challenging political view of the EU, articulated for example by the historian Noel Malcolm, believes that it is actually a serious risk to self-government and democracy. Any legal and political interpretation of the treaties supporting the legitimacy of the EU requires that we have an effective response to this democratic challenge. Can the EU be democratically legitimate?


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-138
Author(s):  
Przemysław Domagała

In the judgment of 6.03.2018 (Achmea case, C-284/16), CJEU ruled that treaty clauses that allow investor from one of the Member States to bring proceedings against another Member State before an arbitraltribunal outside the EU judicial system are irreconcilable with Articles 267 and 344 TFEU when such tribunal may be called on to interpret or apply EU law. This principle is applicable to EU trade or investment agreements (FTAs and IIAs), since they are part of EU law, and to BITs, FTAs and IIAs, since they contain explicit or implicit referrals to municipal (EU) law. In intra-EU relations, such a conflict of norms must be solved according to customary international law codified in the VCLT. According to this law, TFEU would prevail as lex superior and, in the case of Poland and many other Member States, as lex posterior. In intra-EU relations, TFEU prevails ex proprio vigore, i.e. without the need to terminate intra-EU BITs. However, such termination is highly desirable, not only for reasons of clarity, but also because arbitral tribunals and extra-EU courts are not bounded by the ECJ’s ruling. In the case of agreements with non-Member States, the incompatibilities referred to in the Achmea judgment must be eliminated by renegotiation or formal termination (Article 307 (2) TFEU). In the case of the BITs, the latter seems to be the only practical solution.


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