International law and the EU legal order
Since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force at the end of 2009, the European Union has become a legal entity, i.e. a Community that could enter into international agreements on behalf of the EU-27 member states. This fact addressed an important issue of correlations between the EU law and international legal order. Several EU Commissioners perform international functions.
International law or public international law (IL) is the term commonly used for referring to laws and regulations that govern the conduct of independent nations in their relationships with one another and within international organisations. IL differs from the national legal systems in that it primarily concerns sovereign states rather than private citizens; however the latter can be the object of „private IL“.
In short, IL is a body of law which is mainly composed for of the principles and rules of conduct which states deliberately imposed on themselves being bound to observe the IL rules.
IL’s divisionThese rules, besides the public IL, are divided into two parts:
(a) the rules of law relating to the function of international institutions or organizations, and to their relations with each other as well as to their relations with states and individuals; and
(b) certain rules of law relating to individuals and non-state entities so far as the rights and duties of such individuals and non-state entities are the concern of the international community.
Therefore, the term «international law» can refer to three distinct legal disciplines:
Public international law, which governs the relationship between provinces and international entities, either as an individual or as a group. It includes the following specific legal field such as the treaty law, law of sea, international criminal law and the international humanitarian law.
Private international law, or conflict of laws, which addresses the questions of (1) in which legal jurisdiction may a case be heard; and (2) the law concerning which jurisdiction(s) apply to the issues in the case
The law of supranational/international organizations (supranational law), which deals with various regional agreements where one of the special distinctive factor is that laws of nation states are held inapplicable when conflicting with a supranational legal system.
Besides, the two traditional branches in the field of national-international law are usually referred to in Latin:
— jus gentium — law of nations, and
— jus inter gentes — agreements among nations
Public international law usually concerns the relationships between the entities or legal persons which are considered the subjects of international law, including sovereign nations, international organizations and in some cases, movements of national liberation and armed insurrectional movements. Conflicts might occur keeping in mind that the EU member states are, in fact, such sovereign nations, though with a restricted sovereignty.
Therefore, the norms of international law have their source in either:
— International customs, or customary international law (i.e. consistent practice accompanied by the opinion of prominent lawyers, i.e. opinio juris),
— globally accepted standards of behavior, known as jus cogens, or
— codifications contained in conventional agreements, generally termed as international treaties.
Progressive development of international law and its codification is encouraged by the UN Charter (art. 13). Evidence of consensus or state practice can sometimes be derived from intergovernmental resolutions or academic and expert legal opinions (sometimes collectively termed soft law).
Short historyInternational law has existed since the middle ages but much of its modern content began developing from the mid-19th century. Two sophisticated legal systems developed in the Western World: the codified systems of continental European states (Civil Law) and the judge-made law of England (Common Law).
The fall of the Roman civilization did not result in the loss of the concepts of Roman law. Starting in the later middle ages, unlegislated Roman law (ius commune or lex mercatoria) was applied by merchants in northern Italian city states and north-western European countries as the basis for commercial (and other) relationships. In the 20th century, the two World Wars and the formation of the League of Nations (and other international organizations such as the International Labor Organization) all contributed to accelerate this process and established much of the foundations of modern public international law. After the Second World War, the League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations, founded under the UN Charter. The UN has also been the locus for the development of new advisory (non-binding) standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Other international norms and laws have been established through international agreements, including the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war or armed conflict, as well as by agreements implemented by other international organizations such as the ILO, the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, UNESCO, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. The development and consolidation of such conventions and agreements has proven to be of great importance in the realm of international relations.
Conflict of laws, often called «private international law» in civil law jurisdictions, is less international than public international law. It is distinguished from public international law because it governs conflicts between private persons, rather than states (or other international bodies). It concerns the questions of which jurisdiction should be permitted to hear a legal dispute between private parties, and which jurisdiction’s law should be applied, therefore raising issues of international law.
Today corporations are increasingly capable of shifting capital and labor supply chains across borders, as well as trading with overseas corporations. This increases the number of disputes of an inter-state nature outside a unified international legal framework, and raises issues of the enforceability of standard practices. Increasing numbers of businesses use international commercial arbitration under the New York Convention 1958.
The system of the EU lawThe EU Law as a SUI GENERIS legal system reflects specific relationships between the EU and the member states. Several major principles have appeared: direct effect, supremacy, direct applicability.
Besides, the EU legal system has united two major sources: primary (the treaties) and secondary (laws adopted by the EU institutions) legislation, as well as judicial rulings of the EU Court.
There are, at the same time, quasi-judicial decisions of the EU Institutions and non-binding instruments (opinions & recommendations).
Entire body of the EU law, due to its specific, is often called acquis Communautaire.
Some sectors of EU activity are really quite big, including international issues: thus there are more than 3 thousand legal acts are in a sector called External relations.
There are about 20 thousand legal acts in the EU secondary legislation, including 10,8 thousand directives and regulations, and 10 thousand modifying acts; plus 3,5 thousand communications and 579 recommendations.
Besides, there are about 8 thousand decisions of the Court of Justice and 2,4 thousand decisions in the former Court of First Instance, which makes a total of 10,4 thousand decisions pertaining to the category of „EU case laws“.
Eur-Lex, an official EU „legal website“, actually, mentioned 26,5 thousand legal documents in the abovementioned 20 chapters and about 4 thousand amendments. According to different sources, there are totally about 30,6 thousand Union’s legal acts forming the „body of the EU legislation“.
Eugene Eteris, RSU, European Studies Faculty, Baltic-course.com
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