Questioning the EU's 'principled openness' to international law : an examination of the Court's reception of the Aarhus Convention and the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities

Abstract

The question of whether the European Union, by comparison with other significant global powers, maintains a distinctive openness to international law – a Völkrechtfreundlichkeit – has animated EU law scholarship for many years. Yet, while the claim of openness and fidelity to the international legal order is prominent in various provisions of the EU Treaties and in early rulings of the European Court of Justice (CJEU), observers have long pointed out the tensions between the professed commitments and the actual practice of the EU, not least the practice of the Court itself. The competing concerns of protecting the 'autonomy' of the EU legal order, shielding EU political institutions from international obligations which may not be so faithfully observed by other international actors, and preserving the authoritative and gatekeeper role of the CJEU vis-à-vis the international legal order, often run sharply counter to this declared openness to international law.