THE LAW OF EU EXTERNAL RELATIONS

This course is a foundation course on EU external relations law. It aims to build upon students’ existing knowledge of EU institutional and constitutional law, and international law, in order to: - provide a comprehensive appreciation of the principles of EU external relations law as they are found in the EU Treaties and as they have been developed by the EU Court of Justice; - provide a grasp of the objectives of EU external action and of the EU’s main external policy fields, including trade policy, development cooperation, the common foreign and security policy, security and defence policies, the European Neighbourhood Policy, and the external dimension of justice and home affairs; - provide a grasp of the instruments and techniques used by the EU in its external action, including treaty-making, trade measures, civil and military missions, human rights promotion, conditionality and restrictive measures

The course presumes knowledge of general EU constitutional and institutional law, as well as a basic general understanding of international law of international organisations and the law of treaties. The course presumes some knowledge of the foundational EU Treaty texts (TEU and TFEU) and prior experience of reading EU case law. It does not presume any prior knowledge of EU external relations law. Some knowledge of general international relations theory will be helpful but is not a prerequisite.

After following this course the student will: - Have a critical understanding of the scope and objectives of the EU’s external action; - Have a critical understanding of the role of law and of the EU Court of Justice in EU foreign relations; - Be able to identify the most important techniques and tools available to the EU in its external action; - Have a critical understanding of the impact of EU law on the foreign policy powers of the Member States; - Have deepened their critical understanding of the respective roles and functions of the EU institutions (the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament) and of inter-institutional relations.

The course will examine the operation of the EU at the international level, the legal principles governing its external action, the instruments it has available, the techniques it uses and the constraints under which it operates, the latter derived both from its own constitutional framework and from international law. Although the main focus will be the constitutional, institutional and external relations law of the EU, the course will also consider the impact of international law, the interface between theEU and international law, and the extent to which the EU fits – or doesn’t fit – into established international treaty-making law and practice. Emphasis will be placed upon specific examples of EU external relations practice across a range of policy fields (including trade policy, common foreign ands ecurity policy, development cooperation, and European Neighbourhood Policy) and on the evolution and current developments in the case law of the EU Court of Justice.

Relevant materials week-by-week will be provided via the e-learning platform. The following are general reference works for the course: - J Wouters, F Hoffmeister, G de Baere & T Ramopoulos, The Law of EU External Relations -Cases, Materials, and Commentary on the EU as an International Legal Actor, 3rd ed, OUP, 2021; - Ramses A Wessel & Joris Larik (eds), EU External Relations Law - Text, Cases and Materials, 3rd ed., Hart Publishing, 2026.

The course will be taught through a combination of lecture and interactive class discussion. Studentsmust be prepared to discuss actively in class and to present the assigned reading materials to the class. Students are required to attend at least 50% of classes in order to be eligible to take the final exam.

The final exam will consist of the submission of a paper (2500 words max.) on a topic previously agreed with the course teacher, which will be discussed orally. Points will be allocated as follows: - 70% final paper - 30% oral exam The assessment criteria for the fi nal paper will be the following: 1) Relevance to the question 2) Demonstration of understanding of the fi eld 3) Organisation and structure of the answer 4) Evidence provided and its effective use (e.g., case law; scholarship) 5) Originality of treatment and ideas 6) Bibliography Non-attending students will be assessed on the course materials either in a written exam.

Successful completion of the final exam (minimum mark of 28/30), interest in a critical understanding of the subject, good skills in bibliographical and case-law research, adequate knowledge of English (and possibly one of the following languages: French, Spanish, German).