EU Administrative Law and its Interplay with International Law

Speaker: Professor Edoardo Chiti, Università La Tuscia, Italy

EU administrative law is no longer the result of a game of forces that are purely internal to the EU legal order. In an increasing number of sectors, principles, rules and practices established at the international level add to and structure the existing principles, rules and practices of EU administrative law.

This presentation aims at taking a first step in this novel and under-researched area. Its purpose is to explore the legal architecture of the interplay between EU administrative law and international law. Through which legal arrangements is such interplay structured and driven? Do these legal arrangements open or close EU administrative law to the influence of international law?

The argument which will be developed may be summarized as follows. Contrary to what is usually assumed, EU administrative law is not fully protected from international law; nor is it fully open to its influence, as is sometimes claimed. The relationship between the two systems falls halfway between the two extremes of full closure and full opening, with EU administrative law experiencing sometimes relative closure but, on other occasions, showing itself relatively open to international law influences. This is because the interplay between EU administrative law and international law takes place within the framework of different processes, each governed by a specific legal regime. Three of them are prominent: (i) incorporation of international treaty provisions, (ii) implementation of measures adopted by international regimes, (iii) implementation of measures jointly adopted by EU administrations and international bodies. Once we recognize this, we can better understand the diversity of the relationships between EU administrative law and international law, the legal issues inherent to each of such relationships, and the possible lines of development.

Edoardo Chiti is Professor of Administrative Law at the University of La Tuscia, Italy. His main research interests lie in the field of EU administrative law, global administrative law, comparative administrative law, and administrative law of the market.

His most recent monographs have been L’amministrazione militare (Milano: Giuffrè, 2007), L’integrazione amministrativa europea, with C. Franchini (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003) Le agenzie europee. Unità e decentramento nelle amministrazioni comunitarie (Padova: Cedam, 2002). He has also edited several volumes on global and comparative administrative law.

He is member of the European Group of Public Law and of the Istituto per le ricerche sulle pubbliche amministrazioni - IRPA. He is member of the Board of Editors of the European Law Journal, of the Scientific Board of the Giornale di diritto amministrativo, of the Advisory Board of the Revista de Derecho de la Unión Europea, and of the Advisory Board for the legal publications of the Italian publisher Il Mulino.