Law
EU Law
EU law refers to the body of laws and regulations created by the European Union. It encompasses a wide range of legal areas, including trade, competition, environmental protection, and human rights. EU law is binding on all member states and has a significant impact on national legal systems within the EU.
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9 Key excerpts on "EU Law"
eBook - PDF- Tawhida Ahmed(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
3 The EU: Context and Legal Order T HE CONTENT OF EU acts which might qualify as part of the EU’s legal order has undergone dramatic redefinition in recent years. Relevant acts are no longer only those arising from traditional law-making and inter-pretation; now, through the evolution of the EU’s means of operation, they encompass newer forms of legal acts. In addition to these ‘soft’ legal acts, EU acts that implement law are revealing about the scope of a particular legal provision. Accordingly, a wide view of what amounts to EU Law is adopted. This expansive vision of the EU’s legal order is valuable because it brings into play all the compo-nents of a framework necessary to enable a comparison to take place with the rights protection framework of international law. 1 As well as indicating what EU Law is, the purpose of this chapter is to set out methods for interpreting EU Law, since much of the analysis in the book concerns how legal provisions might be interpreted, in addition to how they have already been interpreted. The legal pro-visions of the EU treaties analysed in this book are not all similar in structure and content, or in terms of the legal powers they confer, and do not all require the involvement of the same actors. In fact, their diverse content and the variety of actors make it difficult to deduce a single framework of interpretation that may be applicable to all EU legal provisions. Nonetheless, this chapter attempts to identify some broad principles that can serve as a framework for the evaluation of EU Law. Whether a narrow or broad means of interpretation of EU Law is adopted will affect the opportunities for finding links between the EU’s current competences and minority rights.
eBook - PDFUnderstanding Legislation
A Practical Guide to Statutory Interpretation
- David Lowe, Charlie Potter(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
1 See the Introduction for certain of the facts and figures regarding the volume of applicable EU legislation. The UK gave formal notice of its intention to withdraw from membership of the EU on 31 March 2017, following the result of a national referendum on continued EU membership on 23 June 2016. However, at the time of writing the UK remains a Member State, and we describe the law as it presently stands. We do not speculate in this book as to the possible nature of any future relationship between the UK and the EU. 2 For ease of reference, save where otherwise clear from the context, the term ‘EU’ is used below to refer to both what is now called the European Union and also its predecessor organisations, the European Economic Community and European Community. 3 A full treatment of these matters is beyond the scope of this book, the focus here being on the Treaties which have governed the EU from time to time. 11 Sources of EU Law and the Nature, Anatomy and Structure of EU Legislation 11.1 The UK acceded to the European Economic Community on 1 January 1973. In consequence, a very large part of the legislation applicable in England and Wales now derives not from Westminster or Whitehall, but from Brussels and Strasbourg, where the legislative institutions of the European Union (EU) have their home. 1 11.2 An explanation of the basis on which EU Law falls to be applied in the UK is set out in Chapter 12, along with the relevant interpretive rules for construing EU legislation and construing and applying domestic legislation in the light of EU Law. This chapter addresses the different types of EU legislation (and the sources of EU Law more generally), as well as its origins, anatomy and structure. But before looking at these matters, we briefly describe the nature and development of (what is now) the EU.
eBook - PDF- Jed Odermatt(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
77 At the same time, when the EU acts on the international plane, the EU would be 75 J. Crawford & M. Koskenniemi, ‘Introduction’ in J. Crawford & M. Koskenniemi (eds), The Cambridge Companion to International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 12. 76 Gardiner (n26) 129. 77 Elias (n37) 6: ‘The distinction to be drawn, then, is between the role of public international law as a source of law governing legal relations within the Community on the one hand, and legal relations between the Community and third states on the other. In the latter context, general international law can be expected to have more relevance, given that such third parties are not bound by the EC Treaty, so that the relations between such third parties would be regulated primarily by international law’. The European Union in International Law 29 viewed more along the lines of a traditional IO. This internal/external divide may be conceptually appealing, but as the following chapters show, it is difficult to apply in practice. First, it is not always easy to divide the internal/ external dimension of EU action. Second, the relativistic view tends to under- mine legal certainty, since the legal status of the EU will often depend on the viewpoint of the observer. A litigant seeking to bring the EU or a Member State before an international dispute settlement body, for example, wants to know what the applicable rules will be; a discussion of the ‘multiple nature’ of EU Law may not be helpful. The legal view of the EU thus becomes dependent on these shifting power relations. The EU’s legal status will depend on political, rather than objective legal conditions. International law can provide rules that are applicable equally to all subjects irrespective of power. 78 The relativistic approach means that the nature of the EU depends less on objective criteria, and more on how far the EU could push and persuade in treaty negotiations or within international organizations.
eBook - ePub- Susan Wolf, Neil Stanley(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
As early as 1962, in the case of Van Gend en Loos (1962), 100 it was established by the ECJ that the Member States had limited their sovereign rights and that the EC constituted a new legal order. The ECJ went further in Case 6/64, Costa v ENEL (1964) 101 when it stated that: the transfer by the States... to the Community legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights against which a subsequent unilateral act incompatible with the concept of the Community cannot prevail. National courts are required to apply provisions of EU Law and to give full effect to those provisions and, if necessary, to set aside any conflicting provisions of national legislation, even if adopted after the relevant Community law provision (Case 106/77, Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato v Simmenthal (1978) 102). 3.8.2 Direct effect of EU Law European Union law is unique in international law terms, largely because of the extent to which it permeates the domestic legal systems of the Member States and confers enforceable legal rights upon individuals. The ECJ has itself stated that the EU: constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields and the subjects of which comprise not only Member States but also their nationals. 103 The case of Van Gend en Loos established, for the first time, that the law contained in the Treaties was capable of conferring, on individuals, legally enforceable rights that must be upheld by the national courts. This is known as the principle of direct effect
- Dimitry Kochenov, Fabian Amtenbrink(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
43 ‘Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union, 2007’, para. 9, available at www.coe.int/t/der/eu_EN.asp. 44 Ibid., para. 10. 45 Ibid., paras. 22–5. 46 On this notion, see e.g. A. Ogus, ‘The Economic Approach: Competition between Legal Systems’, in D. Nelken and E. Örücü (eds.), Comparative Law: A Handbook (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007), p. 155. 47 Council of Europe (Committee of Ministers), The Council of Europe and the Rule of Law: An Overview, Committee of Ministers (2008) 170, 21 November 2008, para. 6. promoting the rule of law abroad 121 Europe. 48 Unlike the UN or the OSCE, 49 both organizations have also failed to produce a reference text clarifying what the rule of law entails. 50 From a transversal look at the Council of Europe’s legal and policy instruments and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law, one may nevertheless conclude that the Council of Europe under- stands the rule of law in a similar fashion to the EU. First, the EU and the Council of Europe view the upholding and the promotion of the rule of law as one of their raisons d’être, and both recognize the rule of law as being one of the ‘interrelated trinity of concepts’. 51 To put it differently, the rule of law along with democracy and respect for human rights are understood as interconnected and interdependent principles as ‘there can be no democracy without the rule of law and respect for human rights; there can be no rule of law without democracy and respect for human rights, and no respect for human rights without democracy and the rule of law’.
eBook - ePub- Hilaire Barnett(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Routledge-Cavendish(Publisher)
Chapter 6 The European UnionCONTENTS
Introduction Aims and objectives of the European Union Membership of the Union (with dates of accession) The European Council The European Parliament The Council of the EU (formerly the Council of Ministers) The Commission The Court of Justice Sources of EC law The treaties Regulations Directives Decisions Recommendations and opinions Basic principles in law-making The law-making process Ensuring the uniform application of EC law Direct applicability Direct effect Indirect effect State liability Establishing the supremacy of EU Law EU Law and domestic UK law Monism and dualism The European Communities Act 1972 Summary Further reading Self-assessment questions Sample examination questionsKEY WORDS AND PHRASES
Acquis communautaireThe whole body of laws and policies of the Community which must be adopted by all Member States Competence The right/power to act in relation to a particular matter. Competence may be exclusive or shared 
eBook - ePubThe Legal Order of the European Union
The Institutional Role of the Court of Justice
- Timothy Moorhead(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
7 European Union Law as international law Introduction International law principles enable a rationalisation of the values to which the Union order aspires as a collective political and legal commitment amongst the Member States. The doctrine of Union law supremacy, which parallels that of international law supremacy, emphasises the overriding character of Union legal demands as a set of values and objectives over those of purely domestic origin. A common view that the Union legal order is sui generis or municipal in character fails to explain the directing character of the values underlying the Union project including its legal order. In this chapter I explore and defend the view that the Union legal order is essentially based on international law principles. A central contention in this regard is that the supremacy of Union law obligations within the Member States is based on the principle of the supremacy of international law obligations over those originating in domestic arenas. The ‘intensive’ rationalisation of this principle by the Court of Justice within its case law manages the intrusive domestic legal effects of the values and ideals found in the Union Treaties and illustrates the evolutionary character of the Union project. I shall explore two strands of inquiry. The first interrogates the proposition that the activities of the Court of Justice form an expression of the doctrine of the supremacy of international over domestic legal rules. This doctrine has traditionally been subject to a number of qualifications peculiar to individual States, relating, for example, to the ability of a later domestic legislative provision to set aside earlier conflicting rules of international law. 1 In the Union setting however, qualifications associated with the doctrine have gradually diminished within Member States
eBook - PDF- Martijn Van Empel(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- LUISS University Press(Publisher)
CHAPTER III - SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW CHAPTER III - SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW 108 A. INTRODUCTION Whilst the core of European Union law is to be found in the ‘Founding Treaties’ (now regrouped as the TEU and the TFEU) these have been further implemented and complemented by other legal texts. On the one hand, ‘in the vertical line’, over the years a very considerable body of secondary law has been developed, based notably on the EC Treaty. On the other hand, in some specific instances the Founding Treaties have been complemented ‘horizontally’ by special treaties and conventions which, whilst being related to the subject matter of those Founding Treaties, have been concluded between some or all of the Member States in terms of public international law. Of course, all this is supplemented and completed by the case law of the Court of Justice, and of the national courts of the Member States. CHAPTER III - SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW 109 B. LEGAL ACTS OF THE UNION 1. Standard acts Although it is not excluded that the Treaties may under certain conditions be implemented by acts which have not been defined specifically as such in the texts, the normal exercise of the secondary, implementing powers is through the acts provided for in TFEU Article 288. In that provision a distinction is made between acts which have binding force (regulations, directives and decisions, respectively), and non-binding acts (recommendations and opinions). a. Regulations In TFEU Article 288 the following definition is set out: CHAPTER III - SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW 110 ‘ A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States ’. The regulation is therefore the typical legislative instrument for addressing an indefinite number of cases which are defined in a categorical, more or less abstract, way.
eBook - PDFThe European Union under Transnational Law
A Pluralist Appraisal
- Matej Avbelj(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
International law has been recognised as law, which forms part of the transnational legal plurality, not just by the states, but also by the EU. The existence of legal plurality, being formed by international law and the EU, cannot be put into question, especially since the law of the EU (as has been dis-cussed at great length in the previous chapter) has also emerged as an autonomous legal order. Its autonomy derives from the claim of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has been directed both at the Member States as well as at the international law. The judicial, institutional and political practices of the Member States and of the EU have rendered the CJEU’s autonomy claim plau-sible, but never entirely uncontested. The autonomy of EU Law, as a non-territorial functional legal order, permanently remains somewhat precarious. There is thus a constant need on the side of the CJEU to remain vigilant and to defend the auton-omy of its legal order, whenever necessary and proportionate to the perceived chal-lenge or even threat to it. In the case of Mr Kadi, the Court seized the opportunity to pronounce on the substantive limits of its own autonomous legal order against international law. This is something which is recognised by the theory of principled legal pluralism as part of each legal order’s irreducible epistemic core. The latter does not consist only of the formal hierarchical structure, 73 but also of the substan-tive content that this hierarchical structure is there to shield. The protection of the Upholding the Rule of Law in the EU under Transnational Law 73 74 Kadi and Al Barakaat v Council (n 54) para 303.
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