Between Autonomy and Dependence - The EU Legal Order under the Influence of International Organisations

The European Union’s legal order is traditionally seen as largely autonomous within the global legal system. At the same time, the EU is an important player in the global governance network and has revealed its dependence on international law and international normative processes. The strong and explicit link between the EU and a large number of other international organisations raises questions concerning the impact of decisions taken by those organisations and of international agreements concluded with those organisations on the autonomy of the EU legal order. While the relationship between international and EU law as such is a popular academic theme, the increasing influence of norms enacted by international organisations and more loosely structured bodies on the shaping of the EU and its legal order has never before been studied in a similarly comprehensive fashion.

In this book, prominent academics and leading practitioners explore a wide variety of legal issues pertaining to the influence of the most prominent universal and regional international organisations and bodies on the EU’s legal order, its institutional design and operational experiences. As such, this book will be of much value to academics, policy makers, civil servants, lawyers and judges with an interest in the interaction of international law and EU law, as well as the relations between the European Union and other international organisations.

Ramses A. Wessel is Professor of the Law of the EU and other International Organisations at the University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands and a member of the governing board of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER). Steven Blockmans, a former Head of Research at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague, the Netherlands, is a Senior Research Fellow and the Head of the EU Foreign Policy Unit, Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium; Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium and a member of the governing board of CLEER.