The European Union’s External Action: Views from the Outside

A Europe and the World: A law review special issue

About

The aim of this special issue is to understand the perspectives of a number of EU partners as well as bodies outside the European Union. With the EU’s international ambitions clearly spelled out in the current treaty provisions (such as Articles 3(5) and 21 TEU), it has increasingly become important to assess to what extent the Union’s internal development facilitates or perhaps hampers the attainment of its external objectives. The question of how the European Union and its external action is viewed from the ‘outside’ is hardly ever raised in EU legal scholarship.  Yet, as the European Union’s external action continues to expand and evolve, ever more questions about how such practice fits within the state-centric system of international law emerge. Some practices in the EU’s external action have been criticised as examples of ‘European exceptionalism’, in which the EU receives various exceptions from its international partners.  The use of disconnection clauses in international agreements; the EU’s insistence that the autonomy of the EU legal order be preserved in dispute settlement bodies; the practice of concluding mixed agreements; among others, have raised concerns for the EU’s external partners. The EU’s external relations have also been criticised in terms of failing to live up to the values the EU seeks to promote externally, such as the EU’s record in the field of human rights or migration policy. The EU’s external action has also attracted certain criticism from international lawyers who have pointed to fields of EU action may violate international law.

 

Publication date: Articles will be published as and when ready on an on-going basis, see below list for article publication dates.

 

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Special Issue Guest Editors

Dr Jed Odermatt, The City Law School, City, University of London, UK
Prof Ramses A. Wessel, European and Economic Law Department, Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, Netherlands

 

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Article list

Articles will appear in this list as and when they publish.

The European Union’s external action: views from the outside

Aurthors: Jed Odermatt, Ramses A. Wessel
Published: 29 June 2022

 

The Mercosur and European Union relationship: an analysis on the incorporation of the Association Agreement in Mercosur

Authors: Jamile Mata Diz
Published: 11 May 2022

 

The integration paradox: an ILC view on the EU contribution to the codification and development of rules of general international law

Author: Teresa Cabrita
Publication date: 01 October 2021

 

EU–UK institutional arrangements and Brexit: a view from Switzerland

Author: Yuliya Kaspiarovich
Published: 08 September 2021

 

EU Law in investment arbitration: a view from international arbitral tribunals

Author: Katariina Särkänne
Published: 01 September 2021

 

The EU in multilateral environmental compliance mechanisms: an outside view

Author: Birgit Hollaus
Published: 31 August 2021

 

The UN Security Council and EU CSDP operations: exploring EU military operations from an outside perspective

Author: Cornelia Klocker
Published: 18 August 2021

 

A Council of Europe perspective on the European Union: Crucial and complex cooperation

Author: Jörg Polakiewicz
Published: 12 April 2021