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As WTO members increasingly invoke security exceptions and the first panel report insofar was issued in Russia-Traffic in Transit, the methodical and procedural preliminaries of their adjudication must be reassessed. The preliminaries pertain to justiciability and to the proper interpretive approach for their vague terms that seemingly imply considerable discretion to WTO members, all the more as general exceptions are subject to expansive interpretation. Reading security exceptions expansively appears not viable as they miss the usual safeguard against abuse (i.e. the chapeau of Arts XX GATT/XIV GATS). This lack of safeguards rather suggests caution in conceptualising them expansively, as do the systemic consequences of recent attempts to re-politicise security exceptions which run the risk of nullifying the concept of multilateral trade regulation altogether. Furthermore, the appropriate standards of review and proof must be explored which have to strike a balance between control and deference in national security.
Vorliegender Beitrag analysiert das CETA-Gutachten des EuGH 1/17, das in erstaunlich un-kritischer Betrachtung denkbarer Konflikte zwischen den Zuständigkeiten des CETA-Tribunals einerseits und denen des EuGH andererseits keine Einwände erkennen wollte. In ersten Reaktionen ist dieses Gutachten als Ausweitung des Bewegungsspielraums der EU im Bereich Investitionsschutz begrüßt worden. Jedenfalls das Investitionsgerichtssystem nach CETA ist indes nur mit gewissen Maßgaben unionskonform, die im Text des Gutachtens deutlich werden und geeignet sind, den Spielraum für die vertraglichen EU-Außen-beziehungen nicht unerheblich einzuengen. Diese vom EuGH an der Autonomie der Unionsrechtsordnung festgemachten Einschränkungen bilden wegen ihrer grundsätzlichen Bedeutung den zentralen Gegenstand vorliegender Betrachtung. Zunächst wird die Neu-akzentuierung der externen Autonomie des Unionsrechts im CETA Gutachten analysiert (II). Anschließend werden die Überlegungen des EuGH zur Abgrenzung seiner Zuständigkeiten von denen des CETA Tribunals kritisch beleuchtet. Die dabei zu beobachtende recht oberflächliche Analyse des EuGH steht im Gegensatz zum Herangehen des EuGH in früheren Entscheidungen, verkennt Problemstellungen und führt daher nur scheinbar zu einer sauberen Abgrenzbarkeit der Zuständigkeiten (III.). Dem folgt eine Betrachtung des letzten Teiles der Autonomieanalyse des EuGH, in der er sich der Kritik des regulatory chill zuwendet (IV). Hier formuliert der EuGH mit dem Abstellen auf die ungehinderte Funktion der EU-Organe gemäß ihrem verfassungsrechtlichen Rahmen die eben angesprochene neue Schranke für Investitionsschutzmechanismen, die die zuvor umfassend bejahte Zuständigkeit des CETA-Tribunals in einem Punkt zurücknimmt und die darüber hinaus viele Fragen nach ihrer konkreten Bedeutung und Konsequenz, aber auch nach ihrem Anwendungsbereich aufwirft. Abschließend wird angesichts der Dürftigkeit der Begründung des EuGH eine Rekonstruktion dieser Schranke unternommen, die die für eine Begründung maßgeblichen Ansätze aus dem Schutz der demokratischen Entscheidungsfreiheit in der EU entfaltet (V.).
This chapter identifies the most pressing challenges for the EU multilaterally oriented trade policy due to the changing global context for international trade and investment, caused by the shift of the US towards unilateralism and protectionism and by the re-orientation of China´s exceptionalism towards becoming a more influential actor. It explores and assesses how EU trade policy copes with the new polarities and finally formulates proposals for the way forward for the EU multilateral trade policy. It will be shown that the current challenges are more fundamental in character and may last longer than currently anticipated. It will also highlight that maintaining unity in the EU determination of trade policy is of pivotal importance for addressing the challenges, which however might become more difficult.
After the invocation of security exceptions became more common, the first panel report ever on how to apply them has recently been issued in the Russia – Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit case. While this panel addressed the application of the security exception in a situation of threat to international peace and security, the question must be raised whether its approach also applies to the invocation of security exceptions for economic reasons. In this context, the present chapter focuses on the methodical preliminaries to applying security exceptions: Its application in WTO dispute settlement does not only prompt the question of the jurisdiction of WTO panels and the Appellate Body, but also pertains to the issues of standard of proof and standard of review. A related methodical issue concerns the feasibility of the expansive interpretive approach applied to the general exceptions to the security exception. Reading it in the same tune runs the risk of nullifying the concept of multilateral trade regulation altogether, even more so as the security exceptions miss the usual safeguard against abuse, i.e. the requirements of the general exceptions´ chapeau. The lack of such safety valve confirms that security exceptions are of a different character compared to other exceptions. This difference, however, may be difficult to maintain if security exceptions are also used to defend economic security interests. Finally, the application of security exceptions may - as debated with regard to other WTO exceptions - be subject to an inherent limitation against exterritorial application, which would restrain its scope of application in cases in which security measures against a third country intend to affect also the trade of WTO members, and could become relevant in assessing US sanctions against Iran.
Mixed agreements have been a preferred form of entering into international treaties chosen by the EU and its Member States, despite the complexities their usage implies. Recent attempts of the EU institutions to prefer the conclusion of EU only agreements to mixed agreements, as a consequence of the broad interpretation of EU exclusive trade competences by the CJEU in Opinion 2/15 are motivated by the hope for increased efficiency in EU treaty making. They, however, provoke criticism with regard to democratic legitimacy and the EU principle of conferral, which constrain the EU to adopt only those legal acts for which it is competent. As this criticism is particularly strong in Germany and led to constitutional challenges of EU only acts, the present contribution will explain the treatment of mixed agreements in the constitutional order of Germany and explore the constitutional challenges that EU only agreements pose to the German constitutional order. This discussion will thus show the German legal order’s continued preference for mixed agreements, in view of the jurisprudence of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). Those constitutional challenges are particularly topical in view of the most recent case law of the CJEU that stressed the political leeway of the EU Council to choose, when it comes to the negotiation and conclusion of EU agreements based on shard competences, between either an EU only agreement or a mixed agreement. This political leeway turns mixity into a facultative endeavour in the hands of the Council. Under the constitutional perceptions of the FCC, such type of facultative mixity meets with considerable constitutional concerns because it replaces what was formerly held obligatory mixity.
Umsetzung und Durchsetzung der EU-Handelspolitik: Neue Entwicklungen der „Open Strategic Autonomy“
(2020)
Die Europäische Kommission legt seit einiger Zeit eine stärkere Betonung auf die Verbesserung der Um- und Durchsetzung der Handelsregeln. Aktuell zeichnet sich dies in einer Fülle von Vorhaben und Initiativen ab, die sich auch in die projektierte Erneuerung der Handelspolitik unter dem Leitbild der „offenen strategischen Autonomie“ einfügen. Der Beitrag untersucht die neuen Entwicklungen auf institutioneller, prätorischer und legislativer Ebene.