The role of international agreements and international customary law in the EU and EAEU legal orders

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-130
Author(s):  
Kirill Entin
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Case Law ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
The Eu

The article examines the provisions of EU and EAEU law regarding the role and place of international agreements and international customary law in their respective legal orders. The duty of regional integration organisations to comply with international law necessitates the creation of mechanisms allowing incorporating international law norms into the EU and EAEU legal systems while ensuring the independent (autonomous) character of these legal orders. The case law of supranational courts plays a prominent role in resolving this issue. The author focuses primarily on issues that are relevant not only for the EU but for the EAEU at the current stage of its development: ensuring that international agreements with third parties are compatible with the main rules and principles of the functioning of the integration organization; the possibility for individuals to challenge the validity of EU/EAEU institutions/bodies acts on the ground that they are contrary to international treaty or customary law as well as to the binding nature for a regional integration organisation of international agreements concluded by Member States in fields where the competence has been transferred to the supranational level. The author comes to the conclusion that despite the fact that the mechanisms provided by the EAEU Treaty are insufficient, the gaps can be partially filled by the EAEU Court through its case law. In that regard the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union represents an important benchmark, although it needs to be assessed critically. Thus, the strict approach of the CJEU regarding the direct effect of universal international agreements as well as its application of the functional succession doctrine in relation to international agreements concluded by Member States makes it difficult for individuals to rely on international law in order to protect their rights.

Mixed Agreements: The EU Law Fundamentals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joni Heliskoski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Mixed Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Whatever terminology one might wish to employ to describe the form of integration constituted by the European Union and its Member States, one fundamental attribute of that arrangement has always been the division, as between the Union and its Member States, of competence to conclude international agreements with other subjects of international law. Today, the fact that treaty-making competence—as an external facet of the more general division of legal authority—is divided and, to some extent, shared between the Union and its Member States is reflected by some of the opening provisions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Notwithstanding the changes to the scope and nature of the powers conferred upon the Union, resulting from both changes to primary law and the evolution of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the basic characteristics of the conferment as an attribution of a limited kind has always been the same; there has always existed a polity endowed with a treaty-making authority divided between and, indeed, shared by, the Union and its Member States. In the early 1960s mixed agreements—that is, agreements to which the European Union

The Politics of International Oversight: Strategic Monitoring and Legal Compliance in the European Union

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSHUA C. FJELSTUL ◽  
CLIFFORD J. CARRUBBA
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Compliance ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Strategic Monitoring ◽  
The Eu

States often violate international agreements, both accidentally and intentionally. To process complaints efficiently, states can create formal, pretrial procedures in which governments can negotiate with litigants before a case ever goes to court. If disputes are resolved during pretrial negotiations, it can be very difficult to tell what has happened. Are governments coming into compliance? If so, are they only doing so when they have accidentally committed a violation or even when they are intentionally resisting? Or are challenges simply being dropped? This paper presents a formal model to address these questions. We develop our theory in the context of the European Union (EU). To test our model, we collect a new dataset of over 13,000 Commission infringement cases against EU member states (2003–2013). Our results suggest that accidental and intentional noncompliance both occur, but that intentional noncompliance is more common in the EU. We find that the Commission is an effective, if imperfect, monitor and enforcer of international law. The Commission can correct intentional noncompliance, but not always. It strategically drops cases that it believes it is unlikely to win.

scholarly journals Inequalities in the European Union—A Partial Order Analysis of the Main Indicators

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6278
Author(s):  
Lars Carlsen ◽  
Rainer Bruggemann
Keyword(s):  
Indicator System ◽  
Partial Ordering ◽  
Disposable Income ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Educational Aspect ◽  
The Eu

The inequality within the 27 European member states has been studied. Six indicators proclaimed by Eurostat to be the main indicators charactere the countries: (i) the relative median at-risk-of-poverty gap, (ii) the income distribution, (iii) the income share of the bottom 40% of the population, (iv) the purchasing power adjusted GDP per capita, (v) the adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita and (vi) the asylum applications by state of procedure. The resulting multi-indicator system was analyzed applying partial ordering methodology, i.e., including all indicators simultaneously without any pretreatment. The degree of inequality was studied for the years 2010, 2015 and 2019. The EU member states were partially ordered and ranked. For all three years Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, and Finland are found to be highly ranked, i.e., having rather low inequality. Bulgaria and Romania are, on the other hand, for all three years ranked low, with the highest degree of inequality. Excluding the asylum indicator, the risk-poverty-gap and the adjusted gross disposable income were found as the most important indicators. If, however, the asylum application is included, this indicator turns out as the most important for the mutual ranking of the countries. A set of additional indicators was studied disclosing the educational aspect as of major importance to achieve equality. Special partial ordering tools were applied to study the role of the single indicators, e.g., in relation to elucidate the incomparability of some countries to all other countries within the union.

Cooperation Between The Council Of Europe And The European Union And Modern International Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Kopanchuk ◽  
Tetiana Zanfirova ◽  
Tetiana Novalska ◽  
Dmytro Zabzaliuk ◽  
Kateryna Stasiukova
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Cooperation between the Council of Europe and the European Union is of great interest to Ukraine, which defines the entry into the European legal field as one of the main vectors of its development. The study is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the impact of cooperation between the Council of Europe and the European Union on the development of modern international law. The authors studied the formation and development of collaboration between the Council of Europe and the EU; emphasized the legal aspects of cooperation between the European Council and the EU in the EU enlargement process; analyzed in detail the types of international agreements through the legal aspect and clarified the impact of cooperation between the Council of Europe and the EU on the development of modern international law and describe the forms of international legal cooperation between the Council of Europe and the EU.

The Institutional and Constitutional Aspects of the Arab Maghreb Union and the Dispute on Western Sahara as an Obstacle: What Role does the European Union Play in Promoting Maghreb Regional Integration?

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-318
Author(s):  
Mohamed Riyad M. Almosly
Keyword(s):  
Regional Integration ◽  
English Language ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Sahara ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Cooperative Methods ◽  
Single Approach ◽  
The Eu

The current era is witnessing a proliferation of challenges of a transnational character that do not recognize the geographical limits of sovereign States, such as human traficking and pollution. Therefore, States have to establish new regional cooperative methods to find effective solutions for these challenges. Although the Maghreb States (i.e. Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) have been suffering from the negative impacts of such challenges over the last few decades, they have not yet created an effective regional cooperative framework. In this respect, since its establishment in 1989 among the Maghreb States, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU, Union) has not been successful in stimulating Maghreb regional integration. The current study addresses a topic that has not yet been fully exploited by legal studies in the English language. It examines, first, the genesis and institutional structure of the AMU as well as the constitutional aspects of the 1989 AMU Treaty; second, the role of the EU’s multilateral and bilateral instruments in promoting Maghreb regional integration; and third, the dispute on Western Sahara between Morocco and the Polisario Front and its effect on Maghreb regional integration. The article concludes that Maghreb regional integration has so far failed due to the institutional and constitutional limits of the AMU Treaty and the political division among the Maghreb States resulting from the Western Sahara conflict. In addition, the EU so far has not followed a consistent and single approach in promoting the Maghreb integration nor did it play any role in solving the dispute on Western Sahara.

European Union Rights and Values in Human Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-51
Author(s):  
Anniek de Ruijter
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Union ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Eu Fundamental Rights ◽  
The Eu

This book looks at the impact of the expanding power of the EU in terms of fundamental rights and values. The current chapter lays down the framework for this analysis. Law did not always have a central role to play in the context of medicine and health. The role of law grew after the Second Word War and the Nuremberg Doctors Trials (1947), in which preventing the repetition of atrocities that were committed in the name of medicine became a guidepost for future law regarding patients’ rights and bioethics. In the period after the War, across the EU Member States, health law developed as a legal discipline in which a balance was struck in medicine and public health between law, bioethics, and fundamental rights. The role of EU fundamental rights protections in the context of public health and health care developed in relation with the growth of multilevel governance and litigation (national, international, Council of Europe, and European Union). For the analysis here, this chapter develops an EU rights and values framework that goes beyond the strictly legal and allows for a ‘normative language’ that takes into consideration fundamental rights as an expression of important shared values in the context of the European Union. The perspective of EU fundamental rights and values can demonstrate possible tensions caused by EU health policy: implications in terms of fundamental rights can show how highly sensitive national policy issues may be affected by the Member States’ participation in EU policymaking activities.

Labour Immigration Policy in the European Union: How to Overcome the Tension between Further Europeanisation and the Protection of National Interests?

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-223
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste Farcy
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Added Value ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Labour Immigration ◽  
Eu Directives ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article critically assesses EU harmonisation in the field of labour immigration. It argues that EU directives are limited both in scope and intensity which explains their relatively low effectiveness and added value. Given the current political and institutional context, the article claims that a truly common labour immigration policy is unrealistic. Labour immigration remains a predominantly national prerogative and EU rules have done little to overcome normative competition between EU Member States. Looking forward, the EU should adopt complementary measures to Member States’ policies. The role of the EU in this sensitive policy area should be better defined and justified, in particular in relation to the principle of subsidiarity.

The ‘puzzle’ of workers’ mobility in Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Delfino
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Transnational Mobility ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Eu Directives ◽  
Italian Legislation ◽  
The Eu

In Italy, workers’ mobility is a very complicated puzzle that is composed of different pieces. This paper deals with such different pieces under the perspective of workers' mobility within the European Union and highlights that the term mobility is not a synonym of posting (of workers), since the latter term indicates only one of the types (although the most relevant) of workers’ mobility. The author starts with workers’ mobility within the national border and beyond the European Union. Then, he concentrates his attention on the Italian way of transposing the EU Directives on the transnational posting of workers, which is very problematic, especially with reference to the role of collective bargaining agreements. Special attention is dedicated to the issue of public policy where an important role is played by Italian case law, which is very interesting and not uniform. The paper ends with some predictions about the forthcoming Italian legislation concerning both national and transnational mobility, which will be possibly influenced by the domestic political agenda.

Forced Migration Governance: In Search of Sovereignty

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 923-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anuscheh Farahat ◽  
Nora Markard
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Third World ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) Member States have experienced the recent refugee protection crisis in the EU as a de-facto loss of control over their borders. They find themselves unable to subject entry into their territory to a sovereign decision. In response, the Member States have sought to regain full sovereignty over matters of forced migration, both unilaterally and cooperatively, seeking to govern a phenomenon—forced migration—that by definition defies governance. Unilateral measures include forced migration caps and a search for ways to circumvent responsibility under the Dublin system. Cooperative efforts by EU Member States include the search for ways to more effectively govern forced migration at the EU level and beyond. Supranational EU efforts include the introduction of an internal relocation scheme and support for Italy and Greece in processing asylum claims in so-called “hotspots.” Beyond the EU, Member States are seeking to externalize protection responsibility to third world countries under international agreements, in particular, by returning asylum seekers to Turkey. This Article outlines the unilateral and cooperative governance efforts undertaken and shows that states' sovereign decisions over migration are significantly limited in the case of forced migrants, both by EU law and by international law.

scholarly journals Analysing the Power of the European Union’s Diplomatic Service: Do the eu Member States Control the European External Action Service?

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hrant Kostanyan
Keyword(s):  
External Action ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Agent Model ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Principal Agent Model ◽  
European Union Member States ◽  
The Eu

By applying the rational choice principal–agent model, this article examines the European Union member states’ principal control of the European External Action Service (eeas) agent. More specifically, the article applies mechanisms of agency monitoring, control and sanctions that are inherent in the principal–agent model to analyse the establishment and functioning of the eeas. These mechanisms aim to ensure the eeas’s compliance with its mandate, thereby curtailing its ability to pursue own objectives that are independent from the principal. The findings reveal that the eeas is tightly controlled by the eu member states. Moreover the European Commission has tools to exercise horizontal checks vis-à-vis the eeas. The application of the principal–agent model to control the eeas is not without its limits. The model falls short of conceptualizing the role of the European Parliament, which remains an outlier to this model.

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