scholarly journals On the Way to an Anthroparchic Community of Law. The European Union as the Subject of Global Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Radosław Kołatek

According to I. Pernice, the European Union has to be distinguished from an international organization for four reasons at least.First, there is no international organization where citizens have their own political representation and participate in the decision-making process. Second, direct legal action against individuals by directly applicable legislation does not happen. Third, the question of protection of fundamental rights against such ‘international’ power is not an issue. Last but not least, ‘no international organization provides for legal remedies of individuals against measures of that organization since there is no action having direct effect to the individual’. Therefore the author believes that the EU is an organization of citizens albeit having an appearance of an organization between states.Nevertheless one needs to remember that the European Union was founded as an intergovernmental organization by the European states on the principles of international law. That is why it has to be treated as a legal entity comprising the category of international organizations.Inasmuch as the role of individuals in the EU law-making process has been strengthened, their position was rather poor at the beginning of the European integration process. A direct right for individuals to submit a proposal for a legal act to the Commission is a great novelty not seen until now. Strengthening methods of democratic law-making by involving the European Parliament as well as national assemblies in the ordinary legislative procedure is again a fresh start. It is much the same with the system of judicial remedies differentiating the EU legal order from the horizontality of classical public international law.International law as a source of legitimacy for the European Union has always been and is still valid. Nonetheless the history of EU integration demonstrates the continuous evolution of that legal system. Therefore it is increasingly more difficult for lawyers to describe precisely what type of international organization and juridical entity this phenomenon is. It is all the more intricate while seeking a definition in the world of classical international law.An unravelling comes with Rafael Domingo’s theory as the European Union fulfils Domingo’s conditions to become an anthroparchic community of law. It happens through its legal order and participation of non-state actors in the law-making process. In such a case one can believe this juridical entity is also a subject in global law.European integration in the perspective of international law has been being widely analysed so one can easily find some critical papers in this field. This subject has also been examined by political scientists. ‘A sui generis political entity’ as a term defining the European Union is well established in the theory of international relations. Les hommes politiques go even further in their descriptions naming the European Union an unidentified political object (UPO) or the first non-imperial empire. Regrettably these terms cause more confusion than explanation.Despite the fact how descriptions assigned to the European Union are creative and diverse, agreement on what is the actual shape that the EU is taking is by no means easy. The size and functioning of the EU has been shaped and reshaped over the course of history. However the goal of an emerging ‘ever closer union’ is still in search of the paths of real and not ideal accomplishment. In fact, most institutional innovations bear some relation to past experience and borrow from it.

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joris Larik

EU external relations law is a doubly peculiar field of scholarship that has attracted significant scholarly attention over the last several decades. It is both part of EU law—considered a “new legal order” distinct from international law—and it is concerned with the European Union as a global actor, a “strange animal” in that the EU is neither a state nor a classical international organization.


2018 ◽  
pp. 96-115
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Szczerba-Zawada

The purpose of this article is to try to outline the essence of membership of the European Union. This international organization, by virtue of the decision of its creators, i.e. the Member States, has been equipped with attributes, which have determined its unique – supranational – character. As a new legal order, the European Union has been granted some scope of autonomy, but ontologically it is dependent on the Member States. It is the Member States that have taken decision on setting up a new integration structure with a center of decision-making located not only outside but also above them, the scope of its competences and instruments of their exercising, and as “masters of the Treaties”, may decide to dissolve it. The decision to join the European Union seems to be determined pragmatically and praxiologically – upon benefits of cooperation within the framework of the EU. In this perspective solidarity, understood as the unity and equality of the Member States, based on common values, becomes a factor legitimizing the EU, and at the same time – a guarantor of its existence, especially in times of crisis.


Author(s):  
Geert De Baere

The present chapter considers the position of the European Union in other international organizations. It is based on the premise that the Union, while arguably also a federal or quasi-federal structure, is legally still itself an international organization. From the perspective of international law, that explains at least partly the complexities involved in an international organization such as the EU acquiring a status in—let alone membership of—another international organization. The term ‘status’ or ‘position’ is understood here as the influence the Union can exercise, either formally or informally, in decision-making processes in other international organizations. As an ever-increasing number of decisions having an impact on the Union’s policies originate in international organizations, its position in such fora matters.


2020 ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Robert Schütze

This chapter addresses the question of whether the EU has a constitution. It explores the formal constitutionalist credentials of the Union legal order and shows that the Union has claimed that the EU Treaties constitute the highest law in Europe. It then examines the constitutional nature of the Union from a ‘democratic’ perspective. Finally, it evaluates the Union legal order through the lens of liberal constitutionalism. This ‘classic’ constitutionalism assesses the legal nature of a document by insisting on a separation of powers and the existence of fundamental rights.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 1867-1888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Usai

This paper examines the role and importance of the freedom to conduct a business enshrined in Article 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR). With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the CFR became legally binding, gaining the same legal value as the Treaties. It will be argued here that Article 16 CFR, which recognizes the right to economic initiative, can be an important force for European integration by acting as a new engine of European social, economic, and political integration. That said, Article 16 should be read bearing its limitations in mind.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
SALVATORE FABIO NICOLOSI

AbstractThe development of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has often revealed the tight interrelation between refugee law, humanitarian law and international criminal law. It has been argued that the latter bodies of law have, in fact, played a major role in the development of most key concept of the European Union asylum acquis.Drawing from the judgment issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Diakité, this article aims to prove that this assumption is not always true, especially with reference to the interpretation of specific concepts of international humanitarian law (IHL) and, in particular, the controversial notion of ‘internal armed conflict’. In tackling the sensitive issue of clarifying the meaning of ‘internal armed conflict’ in order to investigate the grounds to warrant subsidiary protection under the Qualification Directive, the Court provided an autonomous interpretation that goes beyond IHL, thus offering another occasion to investigate the interrelation between international law and the EU legal order.While contributing to the ongoing debate on the relationship between international law and the EU legal order, the article will consider the impact of the Court's reasoning on the EU asylum acquis, and will consider whether disconnecting the Qualification Directive from IHL, instead of producing further fragmentation of international law, may contribute to its defragmentation, conceived of as a harmonic co-ordination of different branches of law.


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?


Author(s):  
Luchtman Michiel

The Court of Justice has stated that ‘the founding treaties of the EU, unlike ordinary international treaties, established a new legal order, possessing its own institutions, for the benefit of which the Member States thereof have limited their sovereign rights, in ever wider fields, and the subjects of which comprise not only those States but also their nationals’. The wording highlights the differences between the European legal order (the European Union (EU) and its Member States) and the international legal order. Whereas international law is regarded as a matter between states, the Court’s characterisation of the European Union expressly makes room for individuals, EU citizens to be more precise. In line with this, Article 3(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) states that the EU shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration, and the prevention and combating of crime.


Author(s):  
Avinash Sharma

SummaryThe history of European integration unmistakably shows that it has progressed step by step and is indeed an ongoing and irreversible process. One such step is the conclusion of the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force on 1 December 2009, following negotiations spanning nearly a decade. The treaty aims, inter alia, at improving the functioning of the European Union (EU) and significantly amends the treaty basis of the EU as a supranational organization. It formally establishes the EU as a legal entity under public international law, strengthens the role of the European Parliament, and significantly reforms the role of the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy. Moreover, the treaty has made the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights a legally binding and enforceable instrument and has expanded the competences of the EU in the fields of trade and other external commercial relations by providing it with exclusive competence to conduct the EU’s Common Commercial Policy. The author reviews these and other innovations of the Lisbon Treaty and briefly evaluates the treaty and its implications for the EU.


Author(s):  
Robert Schütze

This chapter addresses the question of whether the EU has a constitution. It explores the formal constitutionalist credentials of the Union legal order and shows that the Union has claimed that the EU Treaties constitute the highest law in Europe. It then examines the constitutional nature of the Union from a ‘democratic’ perspective. Finally, it evaluates the Union legal order through the lens of liberal constitutionalism. This ‘classic’ constitutionalism assesses the legal nature of a document by insisting on a separation of powers and the existence of fundamental rights.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document