Dans le cadre de son cycle de conférences consacrées à l’UE en tant qu’acteur international, l’unité de recherche en droit de l’Université du Luxembourg invite le professeur Ramses A. Wessel à parler des nouvelles activités diplomatiques de l'UE au regard des limites du droit international le 20 mars 2014 de 17 à 19 heures.

The strengthening of the global ambitions of the EU, the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) as “the first structure of a common European diplomacy” with ‘embassy-like’ delegations all over the globe, the development of the EU as an actor in international security on the basis of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), or the more outspoken wish to play a role in international institutions, be it as a full member (as in the case of the WTO) or simply as a visible and audible representative (as in the UN General Assembly) all seem to point to the EU taking up ‘state-functions’ in more areas than before.

International law, on the other hand, is still quite traditional. Created as ‘interstate’ law it continues to struggle with the presence of non-state actors in the international order. Yet, international organisations obviously found their place as international legal actors, and other fora and networks are also increasingly recognised as legally relevant. It is a truism that the European Union is not a regular international organisation. From the outset, Member States have been willing (or were forced…) to transfer competences to the Community and later the Union. The Lisbon Treaty, however, seems to herald a new phase in which not only EU law itself, but also international law may be faced with new challenges.

Ramses A. Wessel is Professor of European and International Institutional Law and Co-Director of the Centre for European Studies at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. He graduated in 1989 at the University of Groningen in International Law and International Relations and subsequently worked at the same university (1989-1991) and at the Department of International and European Institutional Law at Utrecht University (1991-2000). Prof. Ramses A. Wessel is the author of The European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy: A Legal Institutional Perspective (Kluwer Law International, 1999) and of numerous other publications in the field of international and European law. His general research interests lie in the field of international and European institutional law, with a focus on the law of international organizations, issues of global governance, the relationship between international and EU law,  European foreign, security and defence policy and EU external relations in general.

Website: http://www.utwente.nl/mb/pa/staff/wessel/

Registration by e-mail to fdef-colloques@uni.lu (specifying name and institution)

Contact : Nadja Risch Tel: +352 46 66 44 6619