Category: International Law (page 2 of 2)

The EU and its Member States’ Joint Participation in International Agreements

March 3, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Three academics from The City Law School – Elaine Fahey, Panos Koutrakos and Jed Odermatt – have contributed to a new edited volume The EU and its Member States’ Joint Participation in International Agreements (Hart 2022). The volume is based on contributions presented at a workshop held at the University of Geneva in November 2020.

EU law has developed a unique and complex system under which the Union and its Member States can both act under international law, separately, jointly or in parallel. International law was not set up to deal with such complex and hybrid arrangements, which raise questions under both international and EU law. Thie book assesses how EU law has been adapted to cope with the constraints of international law in situations in which the EU and its Member States act jointly in relations with other States and international organisations. Each chapter was jointly written by a team of two authors. The various contributions offer new insights into the tension that continues to exist between EU and international law obligations in relation to the (joint) participation of the EU and its Member States in international agreements.

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Russian invasion of Ukraine – Legal Developments and Sources

March 2, 2022 / / 2 Comments

Jed Odermatt 

An overview of the latest legal developments and sources related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

General Information

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EU General Court: EU-Morocco trade agreements concluded without the consent of the people of Western Sahara

September 30, 2021 / / 1 Comment

Jed Odermatt

On 29 September 2021 the European Union’s General Court annulled Council decisions approving trade and fisheries agreements concluded between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco.  The judgment is the latest in an ongoing saga in which the EU’s trade agreements with Morocco have been challenged before the EU courts on the grounds that they violate international law. These agriculture and fishing agreements apply to the territory and territorial waters of Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory occupied by Morocco, without the consent of the people of Western Sahara.

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International Law and the European Union: The Challenge of Integrating Multiple Perspectives

September 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Jed Odermatt

The European Union has become an ever more visible and active player at the international level. Legal scholarship has addressed this phenomenon. The field of EU external relations law discusses the legal issues that arise from the EU’s activity on the international plane. Much of this literature is focused on the internal issues that the European Union and its Member States face. In International Law and the European Union, I sought to explore the issues that arise, not only for the EU legal order, but also for international law and for non-EU states.

International Law and the European Union

International Law and the European Union

To do so, the book integrates the perspectives of  European Union law and of international law. In researching the book, I quickly realized that there were diverging views about the very nature of the EU and its legal order. As I discuss in Chapter 1 on ‘The European Union in International Law’ both legal scholarship and practice present an ‘EU law’ view and an ‘international law view’ on the nature of the European Union. The EU law view tends to see the EU as a unique legal order, one that has escaped from its international law origins. It is highly influenced by the narrative, established by the Court of Justice of the EU in van Gend & Loos and later judgments, of the Union as a ‘new legal order’. This internal narrative remains contested in international law scholarship, which tends to view the Union as a type of international organization, albeit one that has developed a number of unique features. The aim of the book is not to argue which of these views is ‘correct’. Rather, it accepts that the EU is a unique type of legal entity, and explores how international law concepts and principles have adjusted and respond to these claims. Rather than provide a unitary theory of the European Union that could address the types of legal clashes and conflicts that arise under EU and international law, it explores the ways that public international law addresses legal subjects other than states.

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Webinar series – General and Complete Disarmament: Contemporary Perspectives on World Peace Through World Law

July 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

A webinar series by the International Law and Affairs Group at City, University of London and the SCRAP research group at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS

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Introducing “Understanding the EU as a Good Global Governance Actor” – a forthcoming edited collection with Edward Elgar Publishing

July 5, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Elaine Fahey and Isabella Mancini

“Understanding the EU as a Good Global Governance Actor: ambitions, direction and values” is the provisional title of a book project forthcoming with Edward Elgar in 2022 and edited by (Elaine Fahey City Law School) and Isabella Mancini (City Law School/ Brunel Law School).

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Shaping International Migration Law. A discussion of ‘The Interplay between the EU’s Return Acquis and International Law’ by Tamás Molnár

July 5, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Andrea Maria Pelliconi

On 16 June, 2021, the City Law School hosted a virtual launch of Dr Tamás Molnár’s new book The Interplay between the EU’s Return Acquis and International Law. The webinar, chaired by Dr Andrew Wolman, was organised by City’s International Law and Affairs Group (ILAG) and the Institute for the Study of European Laws (ISEL), and saw Professor Paul James Cardwell (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Elspeth Guild (Queen Mary University of London) as expert discussants. This post summarises the discussion and provides some reflections on Molnar’s book.

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Canada’s new model FIPA and UK-Canada FTA negotiations

May 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments

David Collins

On the occasion of the UK’s ongoing re-negotiation of the placeholding UK-Canada Free Trade Continuity Agreement rolled over last year from the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU, it is useful to draw attention to Canada’s newly issued model Foreign Investment Promotion Agreement (FIPA). Upgraded from the 2014 version, the 2021 model FIPA sets out Canada’s starting asks for its trading partners in the field of investment – a key feature of modern Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as well as a vital contributor to the economies of both countries. In 2019, the inward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK from Canada was £20.0 billion accounting for 1.3% of the total UK inward FDI stock.

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European Citizens’ Initiative on trade in goods originating in occupied territories

May 17, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Jed Odermatt

In July 2019, seven European citizens filed a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entitled “Ensuring Common Commercial Policy conformity with EU Treaties and compliance with international law”. The European Citizens’ Initiative is a procedure, introduced in the Lisbon Treaty, to allow EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU law and policy. Article 11(4) Treaty on European Union allows EU citizens to submit “any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.” The ECI proposal must fall within the powers of the European Commission. The Regulation on the European citizens’ initiative (ECI regulation) sets out the main parameters for the procedure. The Commission may register an initiative if “none of the parts of the initiative manifestly falls outside the framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties” (Article 6).

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