Category: Public International Law

AG Opinion on Case C-411/17: EIA for existing installations and the CJEU’s struggle with international law

By Sebastian Bechtel

Currently pending before the CJEU is a fundamental issue regarding the assessment of environmental effects of major projects: Should their impacts only be reassessed when construction takes place? Or should there also be an environmental impact assessment (‘EIA’) if an aging project is allowed to continue operation many years beyond its originally projected lifetime, without any physical alterations?

Case C-411/17 requires the Court to address its own interpretation of the EIA Directive in an earlier judgement which arguably contradicts the EU’s obligations under international law. In her Opinion published in November last year, AG Kokott has therefore urged the Court to reverse its case law.

EIA is an essential procedure to prevent environmental impacts at source and to allow for public participation in decision-making. Since many major industrial facilities, such as energy infrastructure, operate over many years, the question as to when an EIA obligation arises for existing facilities is of crucial importance. Next to posing intricate legal questions concerning the EU legal order, the case is therefore of great practical relevance to environmental protection in Europe.

This commentary presents the relevant international and EU law developments leading up to this case, discusses AG Kokott’s Opinion and reflects upon the wider implications of Case C-411/17 for the development of EU environmental law and its interaction with the international legal order. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: February 2019

Radboud Economic Law Conference “New Directions in Competition Law Enforcement”

Radboud University, 24 May 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 22 February 2019.

Doctoral Workshop “Bilateralism versus Multilateralism”

University of Geneva, 19-20 September 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 March 2019.

Summer School “Human Rights in Theory and Practice”

University of Leipzig, 1-7 September 2019. Deadline for early bird registration: 31 March 2019.

American Society of Comparative Law Annual Meeting “Comparative Law and International Dispute Resolution Processes”

University of Missouri, 17-19 October 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 20 May 2019.

Henry VIII arrives in Florence: The UK’s withdrawal from the Convention establishing a European University Institute

By Oliver Garner

Brexit has been a personal matter for many British and European academics. In the last week, however, Brexit became even more personal for UK researchers based at the European University Institute in Florence. The UK government published its draft European University Institute (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 on 7th February. This is a Statutory Instrument promulgated under the executive power conferred by the ‘Henry VIII clause’ of section 8(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The manner in which the UK’s withdrawal from the Convention establishing a European University Institute has been communicated seems to vindicate concerns expressed during the reading of the Withdrawal Bill. Grievances were expressed that the provision of wide-ranging executive power would undermine the quality of decision-making. This seems to be borne out by the Regulations, which explicitly confirm no impact assessment has occurred. This post will consider the serious legal and political concerns regarding the withdrawal from the Convention. The Regulations may be predicated upon a misinterpretation of international treaty law. This seems to have arisen from the idiosyncratic way in which the Convention is treated in UK domestic law. The post will conclude with some reflections on the implications of such a retreat from European co-operations outside the auspices of the EU institutions. Continue reading →

AG Bot in Opinion 1/17. The autonomy of the EU legal order v. the reasons why the CETA ICS might be needed

By Szilárd Gáspár-Szilágyi

  1. Background

The EU’s exercise of its post-Lisbon competences over foreign direct investment (FDI) has been anything but smooth. In Opinion 2/15 the CJEU clarified the EU and Member State competences over the EU’s new generation free trade and investment agreements, resulting in the splitting of the EU‑Singapore agreement into a separate trade and investment agreement. Then, in Achmea the Court found investor-state arbitration (ITA) clauses under intra-EU BITs to be incompatible with EU law, which will result in the termination of almost 200 intra-EU BITs and the non-enforcement of ITA awards rendered under them within the EU. Now, everyone is anxiously awaiting the outcome of Opinion 1/17 – requested by Belgium under the insistencies of Wallonia – and whether the Investment Court System (ICS) under CETA is compatible with EU law. This opinion will not only affect the entry into force and conclusion of the trade and investment agreements with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico, but it will have broader implications for the multilateral ISDS reform process and the EU’s investment policy.

Therefore, Advocate General Bot’s extensive opinion delivered on 29 January 2019 (first commentaries here and here) in which it found the CETA ICS to be compatible with EU law deserves scrutiny. I will only focus on the AG’s arguments concerning the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Justice over the definitive interpretation of EU Law. In a separate post, Harm Schepel will focus on the AG’s arguments on non‑discrimination. Continue reading →

Dispute Settlement and Interpretation in the Draft Framework Agreement between Switzerland and the EU

By Benedikt Pirker

All eyes were on the Wightman case in recent days. This may have somewhat overshadowed a second interesting development: On Friday 7 December the Swiss government (the Federal Council) decided to publish the result of its negotiations with the European Union on a Framework Agreement (FA) for their bilateral relationship. Such an agreement would form a sort of governing structure for the most important of the Bilateral Agreements that currently link the EU and Switzerland.

There is a complex political context to the negotiations of this draft agreement that I will deliberately leave aside for the present post (see for a recent overview over Swiss-EU relations here). To put it in a nutshell, since 2008 the EU requests this step from Switzerland, and since 2014 the EU and Switzerland have been negotiating a special agreement to cover the most crucial current and future (market-access oriented) agreements among the Bilateral Agreements currently in force between Switzerland and the EU. The goal is to create a more reliable framework (1) for Switzerland’s incorporation of EU legal acts in the relevant domains, (2) for the uniform interpretation and application of the Agreements and the EU law referenced therein, (3) for the surveillance of the application of those norms and (4) for the settlement of disputes (Article 1 (3) FA). Presently, I want to highlight two elements that seem to be of relevance beyond the confines of Swiss-EU relations: the solution found for the interpretation and dispute settlement of the FA and the law it covers. Continue reading →

Case C-621/18, Wightman v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union: The European Court of Justice confirms that Article 50 notification can be unilaterally revoked

By Oliver Garner

This piece is cross-posted by kind permission of the DCU Brexit Institute blog. The original version of the post may be accessed here.

Introduction

On 10 December 2018, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its judgment in the Wightman case on the revocation of a notification of an intention to withdraw from the EU under Article 50 TEU. Extraordinarily, the expedited process adopted by the CJEU upon the request of the referring Scottish Inner Court of Session has seen a judgment delivered barely three months after the original preliminary reference request was made in the domestic judgment on 21 September 2018. This is a reaction to the time-sensitivity of the political end-game of Brexit. The UK House of Commons had been scheduled to hold its ‘meaningful vote’ on adoption of the Withdrawal Agreement and political declaration on the future relationship on 11 December before the postponement of this vote by the government. This vote provided the factual background to the dispute in the case. The petitioners, including Scottish MPs, sought an answer to the question of whether legally there existed the third option of revocation rather than the dichotomy of either accepting the Withdrawal Agreement or else exiting the EU via the automatic operation of Article 50(3) TEU upon the elapse of the two-year time period on 29 March 2019.  The full-court judgment has upheld the Advocate-General’s Opinion of 4 December that a Member State is free to revoke unilaterally a notification of intention to withdraw from the EU made under Article 50(2) TEU. Indeed, the final judgment has recognised a right to revoke that is even more receptive to the sovereign discretion of the withdrawing Member State than in the Opinion. This post will first summarise the judgment, before providing some comments thereupon. The Wightman decision has filled a lacuna in EU law; it remains to be seen whether this legal clarity will help to assuage the political chaos currently engulfing the United Kingdom. Continue reading →

The Advocate-General Opinion in Wightman: Article 50 Notification to Withdraw from the European Union is Unilaterally Revocable

By Chloé Brière

A few days before the vote in the House of Commons on the Withdrawal Agreement, scheduled for December 11th, 2018, the debates are still vivid both in the United Kingdom and the European Union. The possibilities of holding a second referendum or stopping the withdrawal process have been repeatedly raised as alternatives should the Withdrawal Agreement be rejected by the House of Commons.

In this context, the pending case Wightman and others before the Court of Justice of the EU is of crucial importance. After the judgment of the UK Supreme Court in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, which followed the submissions of counsel regarding the irrevocability of a withdrawal notification, the request for a preliminary reference from the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland could be a game changer. The Opinion of Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona delivered on December 4th, 2018, invites the Court to rule in favour of the possibility for the UK to unilaterally revoke its notification of withdrawal, potentially opening up a third way. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: November 2018

RENFORCE Conference “Regulation and Enforcement in the EU: Challenges, Trends and Prospects”

University of Utrecht, 22-23 November 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Call for Papers: Journal of International Economic Law Special Issue on Trade Wars

Deadline for proposal submissions: 30 November 2018.

Conference «Die Krise des demokratischen Rechtsstaats im 21. Jahrhundert»

University of Salzburg, 24-26 April 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 December 2018.

10th Anniversary CLEER Conference – EU external relations: Tackling global challenges?

T.M.C. Asser Instituut, 6-7 December 2018. Registration necessary.

Seminar “Assessing European Union Better Regulation”

Radboud University, 18 December 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Conference “It takes two to tango. The preliminary reference dance between the Court of Justice of the European Union and national courts”

Radboud University, 14 June 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 January 2019.

Call for Papers: Trade, Law and Development Special Issue on Trade Facilitation

Deadline for submissions:15 February 2019.

Workshop “Law and Language in EU and International Law”

University of Fribourg, 17 May 2019. (Free) registration necessary.

“Does the principle of the autonomy of the EU legal order allow for a Member State to revoke the notification of its withdrawal from the EU?”

By Manolis Perakis

The question whether it would be lawful for a Member State to revoke the notification of withdrawal from the EU before the two-year lapse (laid down in the third paragraph of Article 50 TEU) has, clearly, vital political, economic and social implications. Even though it cuts to the core of the philosophy governing the “ever closer Union” and the role that States and private individuals play in it, it’s also a matter to which the provision itself does not give a definite answer. Moreover, there is no case law issued on the matter by the CJEU that could contribute to the interpretation of the provision, while the UK Supreme Court seems to have posited the irrevocability of a withdrawal notification in the famous judgment issued in the case of R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [UKSC 2016/0196], foregoing the opportunity to use the preliminary reference mechanism. This absence of relevant CJEU case-law is expected to change after the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland decided on 21.09.2018 to refer a relevant preliminary question (see O. Garner’s analysis),

Part of the literature expressing interesting and strong legal arguments has suggested the answer to the above question to the positive (e.g. P. Craig, S. Peers, O. Garner, A. Sari). Arguing the contrary and attempting a contribution to the academic debate, this post’s point of view is based on the fundamental principle that the EU legal order constitutes an “autonomous legal system”, which is governed by its own rules enacted by its own institutions and interpreted by its established Court (C-26/62, Van Gend en Loos). It is, therefore, argued that the legal lacuna regarding the provision of revoking the withdrawal notification, leads, according to the interpretation of the provision set out in Article 50 TEU – in line with the letter and spirit thereof – to the conclusion that permitting such a revocation would contradict the principle of autonomy, regardless of whether it is unilateral or initiated upon consensus.

The present post is divided into two parts. In the first part I approach the interpretation of Article 50 TEU through its letter and spirit. In the second part I develop my argumentation concerning the critical role that the fundamental principle of autonomy should play when attempting to find the true meaning of the provision and to fill the legal gap concerning the right to revoke the withdrawal notification. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: October 2018

Workshop “Justice, Injustice and Brexit”

City University of London, 19 October 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Conference “Sustainable Business… Tested Through Dialogue”

Taranto, 12-14 December 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 31 October 2018.

Conference “Modelling convergence of the EU with the world: taking, receiving and becoming EU law”

City University of London, 2 November 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Workshop on the Advocate General at the CJEU: The Linguistic Aspect

Dublin, 5 November 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

PhD Seminar “25 Years after Maastricht: Achievements, Failures and Challenges of the EU Criminal Justice Area”

University of Luxembourg, 24-25 January 2019. Deadline for applications: 15 November 2018.

Conference “Harmonisation in Environmental and Energy Law”

University of Hasselt, 28-29 March 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 11 December 2018.

Workshop on “Counter-Terrorism at the Crossroad between International, Regional and Domestic Law”

Bocconi University, Milan, 13-14 June 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 December 2018.

Conference “Cynical International Law?”

Freie Universität Berlin, 6-7 September 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 31 January 2019.

A FRAGMENTATION OF EU/ECHR LAW ON MASS SURVEILLANCE: INITIAL THOUGHTS ON THE BIG BROTHER WATCH JUDGMENT

By Theodore Christakis

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued an important, highly anticipated judgment, condemning the United Kingdom for its mass surveillance program.

Following Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding the United States-United Kingdom intelligence surveillance and intelligence sharing programme, 16 organizations and individuals (including the NGO Big Brother Watch) filed an application against the United Kingdom before the ECtHR. The 212page-long judgment published on September 13, 2018 is rich and deals with a great variety of important issues. Several among them are directly linked to some major legal questions examined in the past by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) or currently pending before it – not to mention the ongoing debate about whether the EU-US data transfer agreement known as Privacy Shield provides an “adequate level of protection”. The objective of this piece is to provide some first thoughts focusing on the strategic place of this judgment in the European legal landscape. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: August 2018

Workshop “Engaging with Domestic Law in International Adjudication: Factfinding or Transnational Law-Making?”

University of Amsterdam, 27 February-1 March 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 September 2018.

2019 ESIL Research Forum “The rule of law in international and domestic contexts: synergies and challenges”

University of Göttingen, 4-5 April 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 September 2018.

Conference “Global Politics and EU Free Trade Policy”

Brussels, 10-11 December 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 6 October 2018.

#TILT Young Academics Colloquium “What’s #Trending in International and EU Law?”

University of Verona, 23-24 May 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 October 2018.

Call for submissions: Trade, Law & Development

Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2018.

Nuremberg Forum 2018 “20th Anniversary of the Rome Statute: Law, Justice and Politics”

Nuremberg, 19-20 October 2018. Registration necessary.

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: June 2018

Workshop “Constructing Legal Orders in Europe: The General Principles of EU Law”

University of Leicester, 29-30 June 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Conference “EU external relations: Tackling global challenges?”

TMC Asser Institute, 6-7 December 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 June 2018.

Call for Papers “EuConst Colloquium 2018”

Amsterdam, 5 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 July 2018.

Conference “Waiting for Brexit: Open issues in the Internal Market and in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”

University of Milan-Bicocca, 19 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 July 2018.

Conference “Religion and Ethnicity on the International Bench”

University of Oslo, 4-5 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 18 July 2018.

PhD Seminar “The External Dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”

University of Luxembourg, 25-26 October 2018. Deadline for submissions: 5 September 2018.

Call for Papers “The Visegrád Group”

Anglo-American University Law Review. Deadline for submissions: 1 October 2018.

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: April 2018

Conference “Sovereigns and citizens in the Brexit bargain: Do rights count?” (Prof. Takis Tridimas)

Université de Liège, Amphithéâtre Portalis, 23 April 2018 (15:30-16:30).

Summer School “Parliamentary Accountability and New Technologies: Transparency, Privacy and Security Challenges”

LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, 9-20 July 2018. Deadline for applications: 29 April 2018.

Call for papers: Edited Volume “Legal Impact Assessment of Brexit”

Deadline for submissions: 9 May 2018.

Workshop “The International Legality of Economic Activities in Occupied Territories”

T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague, 17 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 May 2018.

Conference “Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the EU”

Universities of Utrecht, Leiden and Maastricht, 13-14 September 2018. Deadline for applications: 15 May 2018.

Conference “Human Rights Laws at a Crossroads: What Directions after Brexit?”

University of Leicester, 25 May 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Workshop “Constitutional Protection of Minorities – Comparing Concepts, Models and Experiences in Asia and in Europe”

University of Trento, 4-5 May 2018. Registration necessary.

Summer School “Comparing Constitutional Adjudication – Islam in Constitutional Adjudication in Europe”

Dimaro, Italy, 30 July-3 August 2018. Deadline for applications: 26 April 2018.

Seminar “The Western Sahara Campaign Case”

Queen Mary University of London, 3 May 2018. Registration necessary.

EU-Morocco Trade Relations, Western Sahara and International Law: The Saga Continues in C-266/16 Western Sahara Campaign UK

By Anne-Carlijn Prickartz and Sandra Hummelbrunner

This February, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a judgment in which, one year after the C-104/16 P Council v Front Polisario judgment, once more the EU’s trade relations with Morocco took centre stage. Whereas in Front Polisario the Court was faced with the question of the validity of the EU-Morocco Association Agreement (AA) and Liberalisation Agreement (LA), this time the Court was tasked with determining the validity of the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA), the 2013 Protocol thereto and the EU implementing acts in the context of a preliminary ruling procedure requested by the British High Court. The national proceedings were brought by the voluntary organization Western Sahara Campaign UK, which sought to challenge certain British policies and practices implementing the aforementioned legal acts, as far as they pertained to goods originating in and fisheries policy related to Western Sahara. As in Front Polisario, the main issue was the application of these agreements to the territory of and products originating in Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory to be decolonised in accordance with the principle of self-determination, but considered by Morocco to be an integral part of its sovereign territory (for background, see our Article on T-512/12 Front Polisario v Council).

Given that this is the first request for a preliminary reference concerning the validity of international agreements concluded by the EU and their acts of conclusion, it also raised some new procedural questions, especially concerning the Court’s jurisdiction. In this case, the Court readily accepted that it has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on the interpretation and validity of all EU acts, ‘without exception’. This is noteworthy in and of itself, as it firmly establishes the Court’s jurisdiction when it comes to reviewing the EU’s international agreements in light of international law, albeit indirectly in the context of ruling on the validity of the EU act approving the international agreement in question (Judgment paras 48-51). Such jurisdiction is in line with the Court’s recent case-law that provides for the Court’s comprehensive jurisdiction, especially in light of the Court’s finding that the Treaties have created a ‘complete system’ of judicial review entrusted to the Courts of the EU (Rosneft para 66). Continue reading →

From Conflicts-Rules to Field Preemption: Achmea and the Relationship between EU Law and International Investment Law and Arbitration

By Harm Schepel

Introduction

Investment Tribunals called upon to resolve intra-EU disputes are getting used to the European Commission showing up at their doorstep to try to convince them to decline jurisdiction. Though the range of arguments is wide and varied depending on the circumstances of the case and the underlying Investment Treaties, the overarching theme is simply that EU Law reigns supreme in relations between Member States and overrides all international law commitments that individual Member States- and the EU itself in the case of the Energy Charter Treaty- have entered into.  The Commission has occasionally met with success: in Electrabel, a long learned discussion on the relationship between EU Law and the ECT was concluded with the bombshell that EU law ‘would prevail over the ECT in case of any material inconsistency’  (para. 4.191). Other times, it is summarily dismissed. ‘Should it ever be determined that there existed an inconsistency between the ECT and EU Law’, observed the Tribunal in RREEF Infrastructure, ‘the unqualified obligation in public international law of any arbitration tribunal constituted under the ECT would be to apply the former. This would be the case even were this to be the source of possible detriment to EU law. EU law does not and cannot “trump” public international law.’[i]

The most interesting point about these wide divergences between different Tribunals on rather fundamental points of EU and international law is how little they seem to matter.  In both RREEF and Electrabel and numerous other intra-EU cases, the Tribunals disposed of the matter by pointing out that, in casu, there was no relevant material inconsistency, no conflict, no need to rule on matters of EU law, no incompatibility of obligations under different Treaties, and/or nothing that could not be solved by ‘harmonious interpretation.’ It might make sense to think of this Tribunal practice as devising conflicts-rules.

There are good reasons for the Court of Justice not to want to play this game. A case by case analysis of whether a particular award passes muster through national enforcement proceedings, or a Treaty-by-Treaty analysis of whether a particular dispute settlement or applicable law clause is compatible with EU law, is bound to be time consuming and labor-intensive, and will inevitably be unpredictable and lead to legal uncertainty.    Continue reading →

Case C-355/16 Picart: The narrow interpretation of the Swiss-EU Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons as a lesson for Brexit?

By Benedikt Pirker

Last week, the Court handed down a decision on the provisions of the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP) between Switzerland and the EU. It denied that a French national who had moved to Switzerland and who wanted to rely on the AFMP’s freedom of establishment provisions to challenge a French legal mechanism of exit taxation on unrealised capital gains could do so. The case is of interest for those following Swiss-EU relations, as the ECJ had (and missed) the opportunity to say more on the rather specific version of freedom of establishment enshrined in the Agreement. At the same time, there are also certain lessons to be learned for the interpretation of future agreements of the EU with third countries dealing with access to the internal market and the free movement of persons (looking at you, Brexit). Arguably, there is a certain meandering in the reasoning of the Court on the AFMP, and this latest case seems to demonstrate a return to the early days of a more restrictive interpretation, based to a substantial degree on the fact that Switzerland has said no to the internal market. Below, I will briefly explain the facts of Picart and the decision of the Court. Then, I will examine in more depth the above claim on the Court’s shift in interpretive methodology and the alternative approaches to the interpretation of the AFMP that could have been taken. Continue reading →

Achmea – A Perspective from International (Investment) Law

By Pekka Niemelä

A week has passed since the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered the landmark Achmea judgment. A number of posts analyzing the judgment have already appeared in the legal blogosphere (see e.g. here, here, here and here). Much of this commentary has focused on describing the Court’s reasoning and on analyzing the judgment’s broader implications. Most commentators agree that there was nothing unexpected in the Court’s conclusion that the arbitration clauses in the less than two hundred intra-EU BITs have, as the Court put it, an ‘adverse effect on the autonomy of EU law’ (para. 59).

The judgment’s reception has also varied in accordance with the view one has of the underlying purposes of investment treaties – do they promote the international rule of law or narrow corporate interests at the expense of the public interest? Accordingly, those critical of investment treaties and arbitration have welcomed the judgment, whereas the proponents of investment treaties have argued that the judgment leads to less ‘rule of law within the EU’.[1] On a higher level of abstraction, the plausibility of the Court’s reasoning also depends on the view one has of the EU in general: is it an autonomous constitutional order based on the protection of fundamental rights and certain foundational values? Or should the EU demonstrate more openness towards other international law regimes, as it is just one such regime among others? Depending on the view one has over these two intertwined general questions, Achmea can either appear as a logical corollary of EU constitutionalism or as a breach of the EU’s commitment to the international rule of law.

What this blogpost strives to do is to take issue with the Court’s understanding that arbitral tribunals interpret and apply EU law in ways that pose a threat to its autonomy. The point is not to argue that the Court’s reasoning and conclusions are incorrect, but to shed light on the ways in which arbitral tribunals have actually ‘used’ EU law, and to show that the Court’s understanding (with which most commentators sympathize) that investment arbitration poses a threat to the autonomy of EU law is somewhat inflated. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: January 2018

Call for papers: Workshop “Information Sharing and European Agencies: Novel Frontiers”

European University Institute, 23 May 2018. Deadline for submissions: 15 February 2018.

Call for Papers: “Challenges to EU Law and Governance in the Member States”

European University Institute, 8 June 2018. Deadline for submissions: 18 February.

Call for papers: Special Issue “Revisiting WTO’s Role in Global Governance”

Trade, Law and Development. Deadline for submissions: 28 February 2018.

Call for Papers: PhD Colloquium “Regulating New Technologies in Uncertain Times”

Tilburg University, 14 June 2018. Deadline for submissions: 28 February 2018.

Call for Papers: “Geography and Legal Culture on the International Bench”

Leiden University, The Hague Campus, 17-18 May 2018. Deadline for submissions: 28 February 2018.

AG Wathelet in C-284/16 Achmea: Saving ISDS?

By Andrea Carta and Laurens Ankersmit

A few months ago, AG Wathelet delivered a remarkable defence of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in international investment agreements between Member States in his Opinion in C-284/16 Achmea. The case concerned a preliminary reference by a German court (the Federal Court of Justice, or Bundesgerichtshof) regarding the validity of an award rendered by an ISDS tribunal under the Dutch-Slovak bilateral investment treaty (BIT). This monetary award against the Slovak government was  the result of the partial reversal of the privatisation of the Slovak health care system. The Opinion is the latest development in the legal controversies surrounding ISDS and EU law after the Micula cases and, of course, the recent Request for an Opinion by Belgium (Opinion 1/17) on the compatibility of CETA with the EU Treaties. Although many aspects of this Opinion merit critical commentary, this post will focus on two issues:

  1. the question whether ISDS tribunals set up under intra-EU BITs should be seen as courts common to the Member States and are therefore fully part of the EU’s judicial system.
  2. whether  the discrimatory access to ISDS in the Dutch-Slovak BIT is compatible with Article 18 TFEU and justified under EU internal market law.  Continue reading →