Abstract
The abovementioned book was authored by Christian Heidfeld under the supervision of Professor Armin Hatje and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the law faculty of the University of Hamburg in 2011. As indicated by its title, the book addresses the decentralised enforcement of WTO law in the European Union (hereinafter EU or Union). Heidfeld emphasises that his thesis attempts to demonstrate the extent to, and the manner in which, WTO law can be enforced in a decentralised manner in the Union (p. 37). This topic is not entirely new, as is attested also by the literature relied on by Heidfeld for his research, but his thesis explores the issue in more detail than previous publications. Consequently, his thesis makes a very valuable contribution to a better understanding of the interlinkage between WTO law and the domestic legal orders of WTO members, in particular the legal order of the Union where the situation is more complex because the Union’s legal order is intertwined with the domestic legal orders of its Member States and both the EU and its Member States are WTO members.
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Notes
- 1.
On the parallel WTO membership of the EU and its Member States see most recently Herrmann and Streinz (2014), p 587 (620 et seq., 633 et seq., 663 et seq).
- 2.
WTO Agreement refers to the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization which includes in its annexes the multilateral and plurilateral trade agreements that underpin the WTO.
- 3.
See WTO, report of the Appellate Body, European Communities – Selected Customs Matters, WT/DS315/AB/R, paras. 302-303; see also Tietje (2009), p. 145 (172).
- 4.
See Krajewski (2008), paras. 15 et seq.
- 5.
See also WTO, report of the Appellate Body, European Communities – Regime for the Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas, WT/DS27/AB/R, para. 220.
- 6.
However, an exception applies to transport services by virtue of Article 207(5) TFEU. It follows that agreements relating to transport services have to be concluded as mixed agreements even if transport services is only one subject matter covered by the agreement in question, see ECJ, Opinion 1/08, ECR [2009] I-11129, para. 163. Therefore, the 2012 protocol amending the Agreement on Government Procurement would have had to be concluded as a mixed agreement by the EU and its Member States, see Pitschas (2014), p. 255 (263–264). This issue will also become relevant in the context of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) which is currently being negotiated by a handful of WTO members, including the EU.
References
Herrmann C, Streinz T (2014) Die EU als Mitglied der WTO. In: von Arnauld A (ed) Europäische Auβenbeziehungen (Enzyklopädie Europarecht, vol 10). Nomos, Baden-Baden, p 587
Krajewski M (2008) Article VI GATS, paras. 15 et seq. In: Wolfrum R et al (eds) WTO – Trade in Services (Max Planck Commentaries on World Trade Law, vol 6)
Pitschas C (2014) Die schrittweise Weiterentwicklung des ‘Agreement on Government Procurement’ (GPA 2012). In: Vergaberecht (2014) 2a, p 255
Tietje C (2009) WTO und Recht des Warenhandels. In: Tietje (ed) Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, p 145
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Pitschas, C. (2015). Christian Heidfeld, Die dezentrale Durchsetzung des WTO-Rechts in der Europäischen Union. In: Herrmann, C., Krajewski, M., Terhechte, J. (eds) European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2015. European Yearbook of International Economic Law, vol 6. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46748-0_18
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