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In the original EEC Treaty there were not many provisions which expressly referred to external action by the Community. There were provisions on the common commercial policy, which mentioned the conclusion of international agreements on commercial policy. Other references to external relations were confined to the last part of the Treaty, containing ‘General and Final Provisions’. None of those final provisions conferred any substantive powers — in the sense of defining certain policy areas — to act under international law. There was one, last provision which did confer a more broadly-defined external competence: Article 238 (now Article 217 TFEU) on association agreements, according to which the Community could conclude with one or more States or international organizations agreements establishing an association involving reciprocal rights and obligations, common action, and special procedures. The question then arose of whether the external powers of the EEC were confined to developing a common commercial policy, concluding association agreements, and establishing co-operation with international organizations, or whether the EEC could act externally and conclude international agreements in other areas too. Whether, in other words, the Treaty contained implied external powers. The case law of the Court of Justice on these implied powers is of great constitutional significance, and this chapter is devoted to its analysis.

This chapter provides a systematic overview of EU practice relevant to international law. Inspired from comparable articles on the contribution of UN practice to international law, this EU practice will be set in context within the broader framework of international law, whilst trying to assess its impact on the development of international law at large. The chapter begins by recalling the constitutional foundations in European law which entrusts the EU with powers to act under international law. It then focuses on questions of general international law such as sources, subjects, jurisdiction, responsibility, and enforcement. This is followed by analysis of the EU's contribution to certain specialized branches of international law.

This chapter examines bilateral relations with external economic powers and private foreign investors. External interest in Central Asia during the 1990s centered on pipeline politics. Russia continued to be the dominant economic and political partner, but the government was focused on domestic issues. The USA opened embassies in all the new independent states, but Central Asia was a low foreign policy priority. Meanwhile, the EU became a major trading partner, but relations were characterized by lack of clear strategic goals, and EU technical assistance had limited impact. China and Central Asia, amidst mutual suspicion, focused on border demarcation and demilitarization. The twenty-first century saw dramatic changes in external relations. Indeed, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the EU was Central Asia's largest trade partner and China was the fastest growing.

This chapter discusses two decades of external relations law, focusing on continuity and change. It considers the evolving external powers of the EU, where the focus will be on the interaction between trade and foreign policy; it then looks at the effects which international agreements and international law produce in EU law. The contributions by Advocate General Jacobs are highlighted.

This chapter focuses on vertical relations within the European Union, offering a comprehensive overview of the respective powers of the Community and the Member States in their external relations. It pays special attention to the impact of this allocation of powers on the launch and conduct of transatlantic regulatory initiatives, stressing how much the EU’s external relations outside the commercial field are characterized by joint action on the part of the Community and the Member States. While this does not always make for ‘external coherence’ of the internal market, it nevertheless reflects the current stage of European political integration.

This chapter on the external relations of the European Union (EU) examines the evolutionary development of EU’s constitutional framework for international action. It argues that the role of law has been to establish this framework and to order the institutional space within which external policy is made, rather than defining policy content. The chapter traces the role of law in defining the principles and rules governing the EU’s express and implied competences, exclusive competence, and the evolving practice in managing shared competence including through mixed agreements. Underpinning this, the law has been instrumental in developing conceptions of the unity of the EU legal order and the autonomy of the Union as necessary components of its status as an international actor.

The aim of this contribution is to offer some reflections on the relationship between the Union’s express and implied external competences by examining them in the light of the principle of conferral of powers. We are familiar with the idea that both types of competence are subject to this principle, which is one of the most fundamental of the principles which structure the EU’s external relations. As expressed in one locus classicus,

This chapter explores the ways in which the EU uses its external relations powers and its wide range of external instruments to extend the reach of EU law, and the ways in which law shapes the EU’s external action. It examines three dimensions of the relationship between law and external action: first, the role law plays in the construction of the EU’s international presence as a ‘Union of values’; second, the use of law by the EU as a way of conducting its foreign policy and constructing its relationships; third, the EU as a regulatory actor engaged in shaping, importing and promoting international legal norms. These dynamics illustrate different aspects of the notion of the global reach of EU law and in so doing they raise questions about the ambivalent role that law plays in these processes, challenging our understanding of law as the foundation of the EU’s external power and the instrument through which, and in accordance with which, it expresses that power.

This chapter scrutinizes Malaysia's approach and policies in the South China Sea (SCS), as well as how they are evolving. It examines the rules-based framework and the conduct of parties in promoting maritime cooperation in the SCS. It also highlights how the SCS debate presents a formidable mix of seemingly intractable issues, multi-nation manoeuvrings, and exceptional possibilities. The chapter refers to geo-strategic interests, military expansion, major-power relations, overlapping claims, and rules-based legal orders that dominate maritime matters in the SCS. It discusses multiple interests and multifaceted claims that are further complicated by major external powers seeking to entrench their interests in this vital waterway.

This chapter focuses on the problematic nature of objective colors, which have been relegated to being “a power in an object to produce in us an experience with a certain qualitative character.” For this reason, colors are often treated as merely properties of our subjective experiences, or “secondary properties,” instead of being treated as objective properties of external physical objects, or “primary properties.” One alternative to this view is simply identifying familiar external colors with the “power within external objects” that tends to produce the necessary internal sensation. Contrary to Locke’s criterion for objective reality, this chapter argues that the successful reduction to objective properties of material objects is an accomplished fact, both of science and of settled history. Further, it is argued that Locke’s criterion of a first-order resemblance to the qualities of our sensations is an ill-conceived notion.

This chapter discusses the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law represents a balance between the rate of change of the internal energy plus the rate of change of kinetic energy of a part of the body, and the rate at which energy in the form of heat is transferred to the part plus the mechanical power expended upon it. A part also possesses entropy, and the second law is the statement that the rate at which the net entropy of a part changes is greater than or at a minimum equal to the entropy flow into the part, resulting in a free energy imbalance known as the Clausius-Duhem inequality.