Course Objectives

This course is a foundation course on EU external relations law. It aims to build upon students’ existing knowledge of EU institutional and constitutional law, and international law, in order to:

·        provide a comprehensive appreciation of the principles of EU external relations law as they are found in the EU Treaties and as they have been developed by the EU Court of Justice;

·        provide a grasp of the objectives of EU external action and of the EU’s main external policy fields, including trade policy, development cooperation, the common foreign and security policy, security and defence policies, the European Neighbourhood Policy, and the external dimension of justice and home affairs;

·        provide a grasp of the instruments and techniques used by the EU in its external action, including treaty-making, civil and military missions, norm-promotion, conditionality and restrictive measures.

·        develop an understanding of the role of law and of the EU Court of Justice in EU foreign relations;

·        develop an understanding of the impact of EU law on the foreign policy powers of the Member States;

·        deepen their understanding of the respective roles and functions of the EU institutions (the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament) and of inter-institutional relations.

 Prerequisites

The course presumes knowledge of general EU constitutional and institutional law, as well as a basic general understanding of international law of international organisations and the law of treaties. The course presumes knowledge of the foundational EU Treaty texts (TEU and TFEU) and prior experience of reading EU case law. It does not presume any prior knowledge of EU external relations law. Some knowledge of general international relations theory will be helpful but is not a prerequisite.

 Course content

The course will examine the operation of the EU at the international level, the legal principles governing its external action, the instruments it has available, the techniques it uses and the constraints under which it operates, the latter derived both from its own constitutional framework and from international law. Although the main focus will be the constitutional, institutional and external relations law of the EU, the course will also consider the impact of international law, the interface between the EU and international law, and the extent to which the EU fits – or doesn’t fit – into established international treaty-making law and practice. Emphasis will be placed upon specific examples of EU external relations practice across a range of policy fields (including trade policy, common foreign and security policy, development cooperation, European Neighbourhood Policy and justice and home affairs) and on the evolution and current developments in the case law of the EU Court of Justice. The following topics will be covered in the course:

1.        Introduction – law and EU external relations

2.        Instruments of external action – treaty-making

3.        Treaty-making: the principle of unity and exclusive external competence

4.        Treaty-making: shared competence, the duty of cooperation and mixed agreements

5.        Instruments of external action – Common Security and Defence Policy

6.        Techniques of EU external action – integration

7.        Techniques of EU external action – conditionality and restrictive measures

8.        Techniques of EU external action – norm-promotion and multilateral rule-making

9.        Constraints on EU external action – fundamental rights – the Charter of Fundamental Rights

10.      Constraints on EU external action – the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Court of Justice

11.      Constraints on EU external action – the autonomy of the EU legal system

12.      Constraints on EU external action – international law

General reference

P Eeckhout, EU External Relations Law, 2nd ed, OUP 2011.

PJ Kuijper, J Wouters, F Hoffmeister, G de Baere & T Ramopoulos, The Law of EU External Relations - Cases, Materials, and Commentary on the EU as an International Legal Actor, OUP 2013.

B Van Vooren and R A Wessel, EU External Relations Law – Text, Cases and Materials, CUP 2014

M Cremona (ed) Structural Principles in EU External Relations Law, Hart Publishing, 2017.

 Teaching method

The course will be taught through a combination of lecture and interactive class discussion. Students must be prepared to discuss actively in class and will be assigned materials from the reading list each week to present to the class.

Assessment method

Written exam