The MOX Plant and IJzeren Rijn disputes illustrate the growing problem of concurrent jurisdiction between international courts and tribunals and the ECJ. This article argues that in cases in which Community law is involved in a dispute between two EC member states, international courts and tribunals must accept the exclusive jurisdiction of the ECJ under Article 292 of the EC Treaty to decide these cases. However, only the UNCLOS arbitral tribunal in the MOX Plant case stayed the proceedings and requested that the parties first find out whether the ECJ had jurisdiction, whereas the OSPAR as well as the IJzeren Rijn arbitral tribunals rendered their awards despite the implications of Article 292. Thus it appears that every arbitral tribunal decides the issue of Article 292 as it sees fit. This situation, it is argued, requires the creation of some sort of hierarchy between the growing number of international courts and tribunals in order to co-ordinate and harmonize their decisions so as to avoid a fragmentation of international law.
Th e wider issues raised by the Brazilian Tyres case are discussed in this contribution. Regarding the institutional aspects, this case examines the diffi culties between regional dispute settlement systems and the global WTO dispute settlement system. In particular, the WTO Appellate Body showed no deference towards the prior report of the MERCOSUR Arbitral Tribunal. Indeed, the WTO Appellate Body is espousing a supremacy of WTO law -not only vis-à-vis regional dispute settlement bodies, but also regarding WTO panels. It is argued that this attitude is not sustainable in the light of the increasing proliferation of international courts and tribunals, which inevitably results into disputes being adjudicated by diff erent courts and tribunals at different levels. Regarding the substantive aspects, this case is a prime example of the diffi culties of balancing non-trade interests and trade interests. At the end, trade interests superseded the nontrade interests. It is argued that the way Article XX GATT has been interpreted and applied by the WTO Appellate Body leaves states insuffi cient room to address urgent environmental and health problems by restricting trade. It is argued that in this case Brazil's non-trade interests should have been given preference over the trade interests of the EC and Uruguay.
Abstract. This contribution analyses the relationship between international law and Community law in the light of two recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) cases on Article 307 EC, that is, the Kadi and bilateral investment treaties (BITs) judgments. The analysis discusses two concepts: (1) the concept of the ‘very foundations of the Community legal order’ and (2) the concept of ‘hypothetical incompatibility’. The main argument that is advanced in this contribution is that with these two concepts, the ECJ has identified a constitutional dimension of Article 307 EC that hitherto has not been generally recognized. More specifically, it is argued that the main aim and result of this new line of jurisprudence is to protect the autonomy of European law from international law interferences by excluding as much as possible any conflicts between European and international law. In this sense, Article 307 EC is a tool for the ECJ to act as a gatekeeper by regulating the relationship between international law and Community law. Moreover, it is argued that the concept of the ‘very foundations of the Community legal order’ very much resembles the approach of the Federal German Constitutional Court, which in turn illustrates that the ECJ is performing the function of a true constitutional court of Europe. Accordingly, this article links up the external relations aspects of Article 307 EC with the closely connected internal constitutional aspects.
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