The European Court of Justice and (quasi-)judicial bodies of international organisations

In a considerable number of areas, the European Union has developed its own state-like foreign policy. One important dimension is participation in international legal regimes. This is membership of international organisations and the signing of multilateral conventions. Because of the EU’s internal complexity participation in international legal regimes raises many issues of a constitutional nature. The Court of Justice has repeatedly been asked to scrutinise whether a particular case of participation is in compliance with EU law. In this regard, it is fair to say that the Court of Justice’s greatest concern has been the preservation of the autonomy of the EU legal order and more specifically the autonomous interpretation of EU law by the Court itself. Indeed, the Court has not so far accepted that it must be submitted to the authority of any external (quasi-)judicial structure. The two most prominent examples of international (quasi-)judicial bodies that have had and will continue to have a normative impact on the EU are the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization and the European Court of Human Rights. As is well known the EU is a member of the WTO, while negotiations for accession to the European Convention on Human Rights are ongoing. The underlying questions are: How does, will and should the Court of Justice deal with the decisions of these two (quasi-)judicial bodies? What could be the reasons for the Court of Justice’s concern about the autonomy of the EU legal order?