International Trade Disputes and EU Liability

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International Trade Disputes and EU Liability

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The European Union has become the respondent of several international trade disputes. This book examines the right to compensation for damage resulting from retaliatory measures imposed under the system of the World Trade Organization in disputes triggered by the EU. Anne Thies evaluates the implications of the EU's membership in the WTO for its domestic system of rights and judicial protection. Emphasising the necessity to maintain EU standards of protection independently of the external dimension of EU action, the book offers suggestions on how the current gap of protection could be filled while upholding the scope of manoeuvre of the EU institutions on the international plane. Moreover, it places the issue in its broader context of the relationship between international and EU law on the one hand, and the discretion of the EU as a global actor and standards of individual rights protection under EU law on the other.

• Evaluates the position of individuals affected by EU action, allowing understanding of the implications of the EU's role as global actor for EU rights' protection

• Offers insights into the reception of international trade law by the EU treaties and the EU courts

• Highlights the need for judicial protection of individuals under EU law despite international dimension of EU action

Series editors’ preface	xi
Preface	xiii
List of abbreviations	xv
Table of cases	xvii
Table of legislation	xxviii
Introduction	1
1 Setting the scene: WTO disputes, retaliation and the EU courts’ reception of WTO law	6
1.1 Relevant international trade disputes so far: the Hormones and Bananas cases brought before the WTO	7
1.2 Overview of existing EU jurisprudence	19
1.3 EU conduct under review	37
1.4 Conclusions	42
2 Liability for unlawful conduct: the role of the legal remedy and conditions of the right to compensation in the EU legal order	44
2.1 Background	45
2.2 Independence and complementarity of legal actions in the EU legal order	47
2.3 EU liability for unlawful conduct	50
2.4 EU liability in the absence of unlawfulness	78
2.5 Conclusions	80
3 Enforceability of the EU’s WTO law obligations in the EU legal order: EU liability due to WTO law infringement	81
3.1 Unlawfulness of EU conduct in breach of WTO law	82
3.2 Sufficiently serious breach	112
3.3 ‘Conferral of rights’: ‘right holders’ or ‘beneficiaries’?	114
3.4 Further conditions	119
3.5 Conclusions	124
4 The impact of EU general principles on the EU’s liability regime I: liability due to infringement of EU general principles	126
4.1 Liability for breaches of general principles of EU law	127
4.2 Effect of the external dimension of EU conduct on the applicability of general principles of EU law	128
4.3 Effect of the external dimension of EU conduct on the scope of general principles of EU law	138
4.4 Scope of the general principles of EU law invoked by retaliation victims	140
4.5 Conclusions	147
5 The impact of EU general principles on the EU’s liability regime II: liability in the absence of (invokable) unlawfulness in international trade disputes or ‘no-fault liability’	148
5.1 Existence of the liability principle in the absence of unlawfulness under EU law	149
5.2 Application of the liability regime to the situation of retaliation victims	159
5.3 Conclusions	172
6 The current situation of retaliation victims and how to fill the gap in judicial protection while further respecting the EU institutions’ international scope for manoeuvre	173
6.1 WTO law and the position of individuals	173
6.2 EU constitutional law and retaliation victims	187
6.3 Concluding remarks: the EU as a global actor, the international legal order and individual rights	195
Bibliography	200
Index	218