This kind of differentiation between the levels and kinds of contractual association norms is particularly popular in German literature, where the notions of 'primary law of association' ('primäres Assoziationsrecht') and 'secondary law of association' ('sekundäres Assoziationsrecht') feature quite frequently. See, for instance, Kirsten Schmalenbach, 'Article 51 TEU and Article 217 TFEU' in C Calliess and M Ruffert (eds), EUV/AEUV Kommentar (4th ed, Verlag CH Beck 2011) paras16-33. 10 The EUR-Lex (http://eur-lex.europa.eu) search for 'association law' returns so far only six relevant results, all of them being documents issued by the European Commission since 2013 which, as a matter of fact, exclusively deal with the 'EU-Turkey association law' (also known as the 'Ankara association law').
The growing number of EU bilateral agreements with non-member states has led to a proliferation of transversal joint institutional frameworks governing them. The importance of joint bodies with their powers to oversee, facilitate and sometimes even enforce the implementation of agreements should not be underestimated. This particularly applies in cases where joint bodies are endowed with considerable decision-making powers (for example, amendments to the agreement, binding decisions on furthering integration), as is the case with the 'association bodies' established in the 2010s under the EU's new-generation association agreements with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. However, to date, the roles and performance of such joint bodies have been largely neglected. This article addresses this gap in the literature by providing a comparative lawand-politics account of institutional design, legal aspects of power conferral, and functional and performative aspects of authority exercised by these association bodies.
This introductory article makes the case for studying joint institutional frameworks (JIFs) in EU bilateral agreements and provides an overview of the remaining contributions to the symposium. In doing so, it addresses contemporary policy developments and theoretical debates in political science and international institutional law. It considers the rationale, design, performance as well as legitimacy of JIFs both in general and, in particular, in the EU's contractual bilateral relations. By mapping out the variety of JIFs in distinct geographical and regulatory contexts, the article develops an overarching argument about the 'transversal' nature of such structural frameworks, focusing on the most prevalent structural principles and rules, joint bodies and special procedures, including those not covered in detail in the other contributions to this symposium.
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