Author Description

"The European Communities were first established and built using public international law instruments. Since its establishment, there has been debate about whether, and to which extent, the Community (now Union) transformed into something else - from an organization established under public international law into a new legal order that has since escaped these international law origins. Early debates about the EU and international law dealt with this question of whether the Union can still be understood as a 'creature of international law'. Later debates focused on the question of how international law applies and is given effect within the EU legal order. These debates were less concerned with the international law origins of the EU, but with whether the EU legal order was 'open' or friendly towards international law. This was influenced by the case law of the European Court of Justice, in which the Union gave internal effect to obligations arising from international law. Klabbers' study on The European Union in International Law, for example, looks inwards to 'investigate how the European Union treats international law'"--