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Skordas, Achilles --- "Volkerrechtsfreundlichkeit as comity and the disquiet of neoformalism: a response to Jan Klabbers" [2011] ELECD 223; in Koutrakos, Panos (ed), "European Foreign Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: European Foreign Policy

Editor(s): Koutrakos, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804097

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Volkerrechtsfreundlichkeit as comity and the disquiet of neoformalism: a response to Jan Klabbers

Author(s): Skordas, Achilles

Number of pages: 30

Extract:

4. Völkerrechtsfreundlichkeit as comity
and the disquiet of neoformalism: a
response to Jan Klabbers
Achilles Skordas

SUPRANATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
Jan Klabbers makes an important argument on the relationship between supra-
national law and international law and criticizes sharply the judicial policy of
the European Court of Justice (ECJ). He makes his points in a skilful line of
reasoning and protests in strong terms about the alleged lack of respect of the
EU for international law. Klabbers claims that the Union casts international
law `in the role of the unfit parent, perhaps even an abusive parent', just as
`right-wing international lawyers in the US tend to think international law is
up to no good'. He insinuates a lack of vision of the EU judiciary (`the EU
courts still keep the WTO at bay, for the good reason that they are instructed
to do so by their political masters') and makes some rather astonishing
comparisons on the age and maturity of the EU (with the League of Nations,
some African and Asian states, and the German Democratic Republic, where
a reference to ASEAN or to the process of Latin American integration would
be more apposite). Klabbers does not argue that the EU is on an outright colli-
sion course with international legal values and principles, but rather that its
practice is not sufficiently völkerrechtsfreundlich. The main thread of his argu-
ment is that, in its concern to guard its autonomy, the EU seems keen on
manipulating, distorting ...