Suchergebnisse

This Article introduces our study into the operation of administrative law in EU external relations by introducing its general themes and fields of study. It starts by characterising the EU as a global actor and by illustrating how EU administrative law has developed in general, and in the area of external relations in particular. It then moves to examine the instrumental role that admin-istrative law plays in advancing the EU's external policy objectives, and the difficulties involved, fol-lowing from the general way in which many of these objectives have been defined. Building on Bovens' definition of accountability, we lay down a main framework for studying accountability in this context, and its different dimensions studied in the individual Articles: legal, political, financial, administrative and social. This Article then provides a general comparison of administrative action in the area of external action, building on general typologies of EU administrative action, with a view to laying the ground for an examination of the extent to which external relations is special. Finally, it closes with a brief introduction to one of the key themes in this Special Section: the scope of institutional discretion, and its link to the overall accountability of EU action in this area. ; published version ; peerReviewed

This short Article draws together some conclusions based on the contributions to the Special Section "The New Frontiers of EU Administrative Law: Is there a Gap in EU External Relations?". It concludes first that external action is a rich field in the application of EU administrative law. External policies are implemented and given effect through legal instruments and legally-prescribed procedures (including financial procedures) developed and controlled by administrative law and the Court of Justice. Second, as a result of mapping the types of administrative action in external policy fields we conclude that while the pattern of administrative action is shared with EU action more generally some distinctive types of external executive action can be identified, and external action demonstrates some distinctive qualities resulting in part from the multiplicity of actors and fora (including external) involved. Third, we conclude that despite very broad discretion in the implementation of policies the EU institutions are subject to administrative and legal constraints, including through the development of procedures in legislation, non-binding instruments and administrative practice. The Court has proved willing both to enforce procedural rules laid down in legislation and to require compliance with procedural principles such as the duty of care. ; published version ; peerReviewed

Part I: The Concept of Structural Principles -- 1. Structural Principles and their Role in EU External Relations Law -- Marise Cremona -- 2. Structural Principles in EU Law: Internal and External -- Loïc Azoulai -- 3. Enforcement of and Compliance with Structural Principles -- Edoardo Chiti -- Part II: Relational Principles -- 4. To Give or To Grab: The Principle of Full, Crippled and Split Conferral of Powers Post-Lisbon -- Inge Govaere -- 5. Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle Governing the use of EU External Competences -- Geert De Baere -- 6. Conferral, Cooperation and Balance in the Institutional Framework of EU External Action -- Christophe Hillion -- 7. Pars Pro Toto: The Member States' Obligations of Sincere Cooperation, Solidarity and Unity -- Joris Larik -- 8. The Principle of Transparency in EU External Relations Law: Does Diplomatic Secrecy Stand a Chance of Surviving the Age of Twitter? -- Päivi Leino -- 9. The Rule of Law as a Relational Principle Structuring the Union's Action Towards its External Partners -- Ilaria Vianello -- Part III: Systemic Principles -- 10. 'Building Coherent EU Responses': Coherence as a Structural Principle in EU External Relations -- Mireia Estrada Cañamares -- 11. The Search for Effectiveness and the Need for Loyalty in EU External Action -- Anne Thies -- 12. The Principle of Autonomy: An Adolescent Disease of EU External Relations Law? -- Jed Odermatt

What is the nature of the relationship between the fields of new technology and EU law? What challenges do new technologies pose for the internal market and the principles of the EU? These questions are explored with reference to specific fields of technology and policy areas in order to understand this relationship and its challenges

ASEAN is coming of age as an international actor and international treaty-maker. To date, more than two hundred external agreements and other instruments have been concluded in the name of ASEAN. This book provides the first systematic account of the legal framework governing ASEAN's burgeoning external relations practice. It focuses in depth on ASEAN's wide-ranging mandate to promote its values and principles in the wider region and beyond, as well as the highly intergovernmental, and at times haphazard, handling of the bloc's relations with the outside world. Furthermore, it reveals that there are two basic meanings of ASEAN in its international dealings, which have important implications under international law: ASEAN as an international organisation with its own legal personality and ASEAN as the collectivity of its member states. This timely and thoughtful book is a valuable resource for practitioners and scholars of international law, ASEAN law, international relations, regional integration and governance

The EU has long faced difficulties in ensuring compliance with its legal provisions, and as a result has developed enforcement techniques that penetrate deep into the law and politics of member states. This book gathers leading experts to assess the legal procedures and political mechanisms at work in the EU to promote compliance.

Published online: 06 February 2018 ; This comment analyses the legal context and significance of the Opinion handed down by the Court of Justice on 16 May 2017 on the envisaged free trade agreement between the EU and Singapore. At the heart of the Opinion are questions over competence, in particular the scope of the post-Lisbon common commercial policy, but including also the extent to which trade agreements may encompass provisions on sustainable development, regulatory issues and investor-state dispute settlement. The Singapore agreement is an example of the EU's current generation of 'deep and comprehensive' trade agreements that represent the core of EU trade policy, and the Court's Opinion is thus important not only for the future of the Singapore Agreement itself, but for future trade agreements (including a possible future EU-UK agreement).

The common commercial policy (CCP) has often been hailed as the most supranational, and the most successful, of the EU's external policies, through which it demonstrates real weight and influence in the world. This success has been attributed in part to the CCP's decision-making processes which were held up as a model of the 'Community method', as well as to the fact that the CCP has been accepted as an exclusive competence since the early 1970s; its description as a 'common' policy is witness to a substantial degree of integration. It is in the provisions on the CCP that the Union's external policy underwent some of the most significant changes as a result of the Lisbon Treaty. Seven years after the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, we can assess those changes and whether they do in fact represent, or have facilitated, a revolution in EU trade policy-making. In these seven years some, but certainly not all, of the uncertainties over the revised Treaty provisions on the CCP have been resolved and new questions have emerged. We cannot yet look back from 2017 to 2009 and see a true revolution in trade policy. But the Lisbon Treaty put in place mechanisms which could progressively lead to a 'quiet revolution' – a trade policy that looks very different from the paradigm of the last 40 years. Whether this happens, and indeed what such a trade policy might look like, will depend on the choices made by the Commission over the next few years, but also on the ways in which the Parliament rises to the challenge to exercise a strategic influence, and the degree and nature of public engagement in the policy choices to be made.

Posted in e-Journal European Papers 24.11.2017 ; This article discusses the role of the Court of Justice in reviewing acts adopted under the Common Foreign and Security Policy, seeking to determine to what extent the "exceptionalism" of the CFSP, its characterisation as a field of executive action largely shielded from judicial scrutiny, is an accurate assessment. The Court's role is constrained in two ways. First, although the CFSP has been integrated into the overall legal structures of EU external relations by the Lisbon Treaty, it is still subject to "specific rules and procedures" (Art. 24, para. 1, TEU) and among these specific rules are limitations on the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. Second, is the self-restraint of the Court itself when reviewing acts adopted within the framework of external policies in which the decision-making institutions have a wide discretion; this self-restraint is not specific to the CFSP but the CFSP is a clear case of broad policy discretion. Despite these constraints we are seeing a growing number of cases in which the Court is asked to assess the legality of CFSP acts. The article addresses three main questions: 1) What is the scope of the limitation to judicial review in the CFSP? 2) What is the scope of the Treaty-based exceptions to this limitation? 3) Does the degree and intensity of judicial scrutiny of CFSP acts demonstrate a particular judicial reticence with respect to CFSP?

Published: 24 December 2016 ; The nature of the Treaty provisions on EU external action, with a set of open-ended policy objectives and fewer policy-directed legal obligations on the Member States, has left much to the agenda-setting of the political institutions. The Court of Justice emphasises the need for the institutions to retain their discretion, their room for manoeuvre; it is non-interventionist, tending to take those choices at face value without seeking to define or shape them. Instead it has taken on another role: it ensures that the institutions act within their powers, and that the Member States do not obstruct the formation and implementation of Union policy. It is in fact engaged in establishing and protecting an institutional space within which policy may be formed, in which the different actors understand and work within their respective roles. The principles which have been drawn from the Treaties and elaborated by the Court to establish this institutional space are identified here as 'structural principles'. They include the duty of sincere cooperation, the principles of conferral and institutional balance, mutual solidarity, subsidiarity, and the principle of autonomy. By identifying and developing these principles, which by their nature are flexible and capable of evolution, the Court of Justice exercises a formidable role in the governance of EU external action despite its hands-off approach to substantive policy choice. This paper seeks to explore further the nature of these structural principles as legal norms. It first offers an explanation for the importance of structural principles in the EU s external relations by exploring the nature of EU external relations powers. Second it begins an enquiry into the nature of structural principles: what does it mean to say that they are principles, that they are structural, and that they operate within external relations? Third, it offers a tentative typology of structural principles and some ideas on the ways in which they may complement and operate in tension with each other.

In case C-533/08 TNT Express, the Court of Justice interpreted Article 71 of Regulation 44/2001 (the Brussels Regulation) which provides that the Regulation 'shall not affect any conventions to which the Member States are parties and which in relation to particular matters, govern jurisdiction or the recognition or enforcement of judgments'. The Court held that the provision must be interpreted as including the implied condition that the specialised conventions referred to can only apply to the extent to which they do not undermine the 'underlying principles' of the Brussels Regulation, including the principles of mutual trust and free movement of judgments. The Court also found that it had no jurisdiction to interpret the specialised convention at issue in this case. The judgment is important for the development of private international law in the EU and for the EU as a locus for the development of private international law, regionally and globally. The Court has effectively decided that certain principles which underlie the policy field are constitutional in nature and non-derogable even where the legislature has chosen to limit the scope of harmonisation and thus the degree of uniformity in the Union system and to leave space to an international regime. Thus certain choices in the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice are removed from the political agenda. This paper offers a critique of the Court's approach on a number of points, the aim being to try to tease out the implications of the ruling and to offer a different perspective.