1,721,074 research outputs found
An Ever-Changing Union? Perspectives on the Future of EU Law in Honour of Allan Rosas
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Introduction:Locating judicial politics
No full textThe Court inhabits a ‘political space’ to which it is called upon to respond. This points to its need to develop cooperative relationships not only with courts but also with political actors (such as national governments and the EU legislature) and even to directly address and explain decisions to EU citizens themselves. This book is aimed at answering the question of ‘How does the CJEU position itself as a political as well as a legal actor?’ with a view to better understanding the work of the Court and addressing its contestation. For that purpose, we explore in this introductory chapter what is meant by judicial ‘activism’ and judicial ‘politics’, before examining the different varieties of judicial politics our authors have shown an interest in. This will pave the way to drawing some lessons on the factors to take into account when seeking to address and respond to contestation of the work of the Court
The post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament in the EU's Common Commercial Policy: Implications for bilateral trade negotiations. EU Diplomacy Paper 05/2012, July 2012
Full text linkThis paper sets out to conduct an empirical analysis of the post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament (EP) in the EU’s Common Commercial Policy through an examination of the ‘deep and comprehensive’ bilateral Free Trade Agreements
(FTAs) currently negotiated as part of the EU’s Global Europe strategy. The EU-Korea and EU-India FTAs are used as case studies in order to determine the implications of
the EP’s enhanced trade powers on the processes, actors and outcomes of EU bilateral trade policy. The EP is now endowed with the ‘hard power’ of consent in the
ratification phase of FTAs, acting as a threat to strengthen its ‘soft power’ to influence negotiations. The EP is developing strategies to influence the mandate and now plays an important role in the implementation of FTAs. The entry of this new player on the Brussels trade policy field has brought about a shift in the institutional balance of power and opened up the EP as a new point of access for trade policy lobbyists. Finally, increased EP involvement in EU trade policy has brought about a
politicisation of EU trade policy and greater normative outcomes of FTAs
The role of judges in academic and political discourse
No full textThe paper aims at exploring the implications of ‘academic activism’ by judges at the Court of Justice, due the specificities of the European institutional setting and the EU legal framework. The contribution will first introduce the possible sources of interaction between academia and the judiciary (section 2) since judges’ scholarly writing is but one of the modes in which the judiciary may engage in dialogue with academia. The goal here is to underline how judicial and academic work differ in nature, aims, and features, but they are likely to interact, and when they do, legal systems have to accommodate the possible ensuing tensions. Following that preliminary part, section 3 will delve into one particular form of interaction between scholarly debate and the judiciary, which is the academic writing by judges, more specifically by members of the Court of Justice. Rather than capturing the details of the extent to which judges at the ECJ engage in legal scholarly writing, our research aimed at gaining an overall picture of the magnitude of the phenomenon, considering also the composition and the academic career of the members of the Court. This broad notion served as a basis to explore the possible points of concerns arising from ‘academic activism’, in particular undermining collegiality or altering the perception of judicial independence.
On our part, we believe that there is no great danger in judges participating to academic debates and that the judiciary’s freedom of expression is a paramount interest, provided of course such participation does not interfere with the effectiveness of proceedings. This is not to say that members of the judiciary should not exercise caution in expressing their views, but this is a matter of desirability better left to the wisdom of the individual, rather than a matter of institutional concern. The concluding remarks will underline how balancing the freedom of expression of members of the judiciary with the independence of the Court deserves particular care in the EU due to the nature of the Court as a judicial body that is both more visible and more open to challenge than national apical courts
The 2011 Debacle over Danish Border Control: A Mismatch of Domestic and European Games. EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2012, January 2012
Full text linkIn May 2011 the Danish minority government successfully obtained the support of the Danish People’s Party to carry out a comprehensive pension reform. In return, it was agreed that Denmark would reintroduce border controls. However, this appeared to be at odds with the Schengen Agreement and prompted a heated response from Berlin and Brussels. The Danish government had to backtrack and insist that the proposed initiatives would not violate the Schengen acquis. This paper examines how a purely domestic issue galvanized into a strong diplomatic pressure on Denmark, and what that tells us of modern diplomacy in an integrated Europe. It argues that by linking its pension reform with border controls, the Danish government introduced the international level into its national negotiations. This illustrates that the two levels cannot be kept entirely separate in the European Union and diplomacy increasingly becomes a part of daily policy-making
Post-modern Diplomacy: Can EU Foreign Policy Make a Difference in World Politics? EU Diplomacy Paper, 04/2011
Full text linkAlthough much discussed, there is in fact very little common EU foreign policy. The main reason for this is the reluctance, even the resistance of the member states to grant more authority to the Union in this field. This is unfortunate because the European Union could make a distinctive and positive contribution to the development of peaceful conflict resolution and a rule-based international order. This paper looks at three questions: the reasons for the lack of a common European foreign and security policy, what institutions might make a critical difference in developing more commonness and what the specific characteristics of a ‘post-modern’ EU foreign policy might be
The European Union-an expanding security community? EU Diplomacy Paper 06/2012, August 2012
Full text linkThis paper investigates why and how the geographical scope of the security community centered around the European Union (EU) is expanding. It starts from the assumption that the EU itself is a ‘tightly-coupled mature pluralistic security community’. The analysis of the expansion of this peaceful area is based on the theoretical framework first designed by Karl Deutsch and later developed by Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett. Contrary to the logic of the adage ‘si vis pacem para bellum’, I argue that the security community is expanding because the EU’s own origins and self-perception are driven by an ambition to create lasting peace. The key mechanisms I explore are the EU’s enlargement and neighborhood policies, which are best understood when analyzed against the concept of concentric circles: the regional EU-centered security community is a multi-speed security community, stronger at its core and weaker as it spreads towards its margins
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