Free and Open Indo-Pacific

Abstract

The EU presents itself as a community of law based on legal norms to achieve the integration of its member states. For this reason, one of the most important dimensions of the EU is its legal system and its rules. Moreover, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, presented by former Japanese Prime Minister Abe seeks to establish “rules of law”. This chapter analyses how these issues fit together, the new FOIP and the fact that the EU has not yet reacted legally to it. Indeed, it is known that the EU and three member states have presented their vision of FOIP, but neither of these documents is a legally binding norm, and the vision they present is not the same. It should be added that the concept of FOIP is still quite undetermined since it does not refer exclusively to a territory. However, at best, it is a concept of a political nature, which is poorly accommodated with less lax legal terms. However, the EU has been deploying an important network of bilateral treaties with the countries with greater weight in the FOIP, treaties that relate to the objectives of FOIP.