Belgium with regard to municipal elections. 2 R (on the application of Chester) v Secretary of State for Justice and McGeoch v The Lord President of the Council and another (Scotland) [2013] UKSC 63.
Sixty years after its launch by the European Court of Justice in the case of Costa v ENEL, the notion that EU law derives from an autonomous source still leads to divergent interpretations. In this chapter, it is submitted that the concept of EU autonomy in effect comes down to a disguised claim to sovereignty. Contrary to what is often believed, such a reading, which is premised on the Court's insistence on the self-referential nature of the Union legal order, provides a promising point of departure for assessing the manner in which the EU deals and, in the future, should deal with norms that originate in international law. In particular, perceiving the claim to authority in Costa v ENEL and more recent cases such as Kadi as a claim to sovereignty could pave the way for a jurisprudential approach in which deference towards international law is the norm and in which resistance towards external norms is only acceptable if such norms put the constitutional identity of the EU at risk. More autonomy vis-à-vis international law might actually mean less autonomy.
In the US the states, under Art. I, sect. 10, cl. 1 Constitution, lack the power to conclude treaties altogether. The German Grundgesetz provides in Art. 32(3) that where the Länder are in possession of this competence, they may only do so with the consent of the federal government. In both cases, however, some nuances seem to be in order to the wide powers of the central authorities in matters of external relations. Thus, in the US, states, with the consent of Congress, have the power to enter into agreements or compacts with foreign states (Art. I, sect. 10, cl. 3). And as regards Germany, it is said that the Länder may conclude a valid treaty even without the consent of the federal government and also bear international responsibility in the event of a breach.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.