The author argues that the legal framework for EU foreign affairs must adapt in a changing world so as to ensure the EU treaties can cater for a more assertive Europe in the wider world.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union is a highly exceptional component of the EU legal order. This constitutionalised foreign policy regime, with legal, diplomatic, and political DNA woven throughout its fabric, is a distinct sub-system of law on the outermost sphere of European supranationalism. When contrasted against other Union policies, it is immediately clear that EU foreign policy has a special decision-making mechanism, making it highly exceptional.
In the now depillarised framework of the EU treaties, issues of institutional division arise from the legacy of the former pillar system. This is due to the reality that of prime concern in EU external relations is the question of ‘who decides?’ By engaging a number of legal themes that cut across foreign affairs exceptionalism, executive prerogatives, parliamentary accountability, judicial review, and the constitutionalisation of European integration, Butler’s new book on CFSP lays bare how EU foreign affairs have become highly legalised, leading to ever-greater coherence in how Europe exerts itself on the global stage.
In this first monograph dedicated exclusively to the law of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy in modern times, the author argues that the legal framework for EU foreign affairs must adapt in a changing world so as to ensure the EU treaties can cater for a more assertive Europe in the wider world.
Dr. Graham Butler is Associate Professor of Law at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of Constitutional Law of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (Hart/Bloomsbury 2019). His research has been published in the leading academic law reviews and journals related to European law, including the European Law Review, European Constitutional Law Review, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, the Yearbook of European Law, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, the Columbia Journal of European Law, Nordic Journal of International Law, the Journal of European Public Policy, International Organizations Law Review, the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law, and Europarättslig Tidskrift. Dr. Butler's research has been cited in two cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Firstly in the Opinion of Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston in Mengesteab in 2017, and secondly in the Opinion of Advocate General Michal Bobek in Case C-418/18 Puppinck in 2019. Both were cases before the Grand Chamber of the Court. At Aarhus University in Denmark, European Union law, EU constitutional law, EU external relations law, and EU internal market law.
Moderator: Associate Professor Jaan Paju, Stockholm University
WELCOME!
When: Tuesday, 17 September, 12-13 (coffee and sandwiches will be served from 11:30)
Where: Stockholm University, Universitetsvägen 10, C-house, 8th floor, Faculty room