RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND GLOBAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di ROMA "Tor Vergata" - DIRITTO PUBBLICO - ()

Research Unit Leader

Claudio Franchini

Description

The research will develop the issues related to the multiple interferences between European administrative law and the global one, with a specific glance on the relationships among legal sources. Increasingly, domestic and supranational judges are involved in decisions on the conformity of the European regulation with International treaties and decisions adopted by international organisations. This is mainly due to three reasons.
First of all, there is no clear hierarchy between the global legal system and the European one. Thus, the result of the judgement itself about the conformity of a the one to the other is not clear at all.
Secondly, the ultimate decision on the legal effect of the international regulation on individuals, whether they can be direct or not, rests on supranational judges. Hence, a strategic role is played by the Court of Justice itself.
Thirdly, an other crucial element which must be taken into account is the political relationship among member States, and the connected mechanisms of bargaining, which keep on exercising a pivotal role in dispute settlement.
Among the most interesting examples of conflicts of norms, the research will highlight the one between the Wto regulation and the European one. In particular the analysis will focus on the relationship between world trade agreements and the legality of acts and regulations adopted by the European institutions. This issue has been investigated by the Court of Justice many times: among the leading and most recent cases: Biret International (C-93/02, september 30, 2003) and Van Parys (C-377/02, march 1st, 2005). In these cases nevertheless, there s no clear statement about whether a European act adopted in breach of a global rule on international trade is conceived as legal within the European legal system or not. Nor this is clearly stated in the decisions adopted by the diverse domestic jurisdictions of Member states.
The ambiguous position of judges confirms how relevant is the issue not only from a juridical perspective but also and even more from the political and economic ones. It shows the conflict between the need to comply with the commitment taken by the European Union at the international level and the need not to put under discussion the will of political institutions.
The research aims, first, at investigating on the coexistence of the contractual will of the States typical of their relationships within the international legal system and an emerging coherent system of sources ruled by principles such as the hierarchical one; secondly at assessing the attitude of the European court of justice on the conformity of the European regulation with the international parameters, also in comparison with the domestic jurisdictions; finally, at highlighting the role taken by the judge in the resolution of conflicts between the two legal systems.