Suchergebnisse

In case C-741/19 Republic of Moldova v Komstroy LLC ECLI:EU:C:2021:655, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union found that the acquisition of a claim arising from a contract for the supply of electricity does not constitute an "investment" within the meaning of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). Yet the impact of the case goes far beyond this finding. In coming to this conclusion, the Court found that i) it has jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling in a dispute that has little or no connection to the EU legal order and ii) the intra-EU application of the ECT's investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms is incompatible with EU law. The Court thus answered the question, debated in academia and before arbitral tribunals, whether the reasoning in its 2018 Achmea judgment applied in relation to the ECT's dispute settlement provisions. Whereas arbitral tribunals have approached the issue through the lens of public international law, in particular the law of treaties, the EU Court approaches the question as one about the autonomy of the EU legal order. Like Achmea, the effects Komstroy outside the EU legal order are likely to be limited.

This article discusses how the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) deals with international law issues. While the EU and the Court itself are often presented as being `friendly' towards international law, recent cases have shown a trend towards a more guarded approach by the Court. The article first examines recent literature on the CJEU's relationship with international law which demonstrates an oscillation between `openness' towards international law and an approach that emphasises the autonomy of the EU legal order. It then discusses what rules exist to guide the Court in determining its relationship with international law. To what extent do the EU Treaties, the legal traditions of the Member States or international law itself determine how the CJEU should deal with international law issues? The next part examines how the CJEU has dealt with international law in practice. The CJEU has progressively developed tools to limit the effect of international law, as it attempts to strike a balance between respect for international law and the need to safeguard the integrity of the EU legal order. It discusses some recent cases where the CJEU dealt with key international law issues in order to demonstrate how this relationship is shaped in practice. The final part seeks to understand why the Court seems to oscillate between an open and a closed approach to international law. It is posited that this can partly be explained by whether the Court is acting in its capacity as an international or a domestic court.

While most studies in EU external relations law take an inside-out perspective, the question of how the EU and its external action is viewed from the 'outside' is hardly ever raised in EU legal scholarship. Yet studies from the outside can help us to understand how third States and international institutions perceive the (normative) role the EU aims to play. As the EU's external action develops, the law governing the EU's external action has indeed received greater attention from the 'outside'. The articles published in this special issue were presented at a workshop on 'The European Union's External Action and International Law: A View From the Outside' organised by the International Law and Affairs Group (ILAG) of the City Law School and the European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group on the EU as a Global Actor. This introductory article sets the scene for a special issue drawing together various outside perspectives, examining the views from selected international institutions, cooperation frameworks, and non-EU States.