Treaty Revision Research Articles

Multilateral Tax Treaty Revision to Combat Tax Avoidance: On the Merits and Limits of BEPS’s Multilateral Instrument

Abstract Since 2015, more than 140 countries have cooperated in the OECD’s “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” (BEPS) project to combat multinational tax avoidance. Several of the key actions, most importantly measures against tax-treaty shopping, require changes to double taxation treaties. The OECD designed a special instrument—the ‘multilateral instrument’ (MLI) - to allow for a swift implementation of BEPS-related tax treaty changes. In this paper, we show that MLI take-up is incomplete, we present (partly surprising) correlates of the take-up decision and develop a simple theoretical model to rationalize the observed take-up behavior. A key insight is that conduit countries, which are the beneficiaries of tax treaty shopping, can benefit from anti-treaty shopping laws as firms have incentives to scale-up real activity in conduit nations in order to be exempted from the new anti-treaty shopping rules. Empirical findings are consistent with these considerations: MLI adoption rates of conduit countries are high. Treaty shopping has, to date, not significantly dropped. And there is indeed indication that firms have scaled up their real economic activity in conduit nations. Overall, our findings reject that treaty shopping has been “killed” as envisaged by the OECD. JEL classification: F21, F23, F53, H25, H26, H32, H87, K34

The KMT’s Shifting Approach to the Outside World during the 1920s: A Reinvention of Chinese Confucianism

Through a Confucian lens, this research explores the transformation of the Kuomintang’s (國民黨; KMT) foreign policy during the 1920s. It examines the shift in the KMT's foreign policy from Sun Yat-Sen’s 孫逸仙 (1866-1925) “Allying with Soviet Russia” (lian’e 聯俄) stance to Chiang Kai-shek’s 蔣介石 (1887-1975) prioritization of Western relations around 1927. The study highlights the reintroduction of Confucianism in the KMT's foreign policy during this period, considering the conventional Confucian education of KMT leaders. Unlike previous studies analyzing this shift from political or historical perspectives, this study provides a chronological analysis that centers around the change to Confucianism. It addresses a significant research vacuum in the existing literature and uses archival analysis to examine the evolution of the KMT’s foreign policy. The study examines primary sources such as Sun’s speeches, Chiang's diary, and contemporaneous memoirs. The study comprises three chronological sections. The first section (1920–1924) explores the influence of Confucianism on Sun’s alignment with Soviet Russia due to commonalities between Confucianism and Communism. The second section (1924-1927) examines how Confucianism shaped the KMT’s Western-oriented shift. The third section (1928–1930) delves into the philosophical basis of the Treaty Revision Movement (Gaiding xinyue yundong 改訂新約運動) and the adoption of ‘keeping good faith and pursuing harmony’ (Jiangxin xiumu 講信修睦) as the foreign policy principle. This research concludes that Sun, inspired by Confucian-Communist parallels, initially aligned with Soviet Russia but that later, under Chiang’s leadership, the KMT used “The Confucianisation of the Three People’s Principles” (Sanminzhuyi 三民主義) in its consolidation of a power shift towards the West and adopted Confucian principles to further legitimize its rule by promoting the New Treaty Movement.

From treaty to custom: Shifting paths in the recent development of international humanitarian law

AbstractFrom 1864 to the 1970s, international humanitarian law (IHL) changed through the path of formal treaty revision. Since 1977, however, purported changes to IHL have come not from treaty making but from interpretation, particularly through claims about the attainment of customary status by existing treaty rules. This article explains this shift as the result of the attitudes and choices of key IHL stakeholders under the changed conditions of post-Second World War multilateralism. It argues that the turn toward customary law claims-making was a reaction to the negotiation politics and contested outcomes of the 1977 Additional Protocols (APs) to the Geneva Conventions. After 1977, leading actors looked to custom as a means of arresting or encouraging legal change. The resulting, much-expanded IHL has proved influential and authoritative, even if its precise degree of acceptance by states remains unclear.

Azerbaijani-Persian relations in 1918-1920: from territorial claims to diplomacy

The article examines the development of Azerbaijani-Persian relations in 1918–1920, when a newly formed state called Azerbaijan Democratic Republic appeared on the world map. Before the declaration of independence, the territory of Azerbaijan was a part of the Russian Empire, which received Azerbaijani lands as a result of the Russian-Persian wars in the first half of the 19th century. The Turkmenchay Treaty of 1828 defined the border separating Azerbaijan and Armenia from Persia and consolidated the division of Azerbaijan between the Russian Empire and Persia. As a result, the territory of Azerbaijan was divided into two parts - northern and southern, called Caucasian and Persian Azerbaijan respectively. The article is an attempt to fill the gap in the analysis of Azerbaijani-Persian relations in 1918-1920 in the domestic science. Historical, narrative and system methods were used as the main methods in the work on the article. The relevance of the article is conditioned by the possibility of revision of international treaties of historical significance. In particular, modern Iran has started revising the Turkmenchay Treaty of 1828. The revision of previously of earlier treaties may pose a threat to regional international relations and alter the territorial integrity of the states involved in the process. Understanding the historical development of the countries is important for building a foreign policy line at the present stage, including for Russia. Based on an analysis of foreign policy documents of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the author comes to the conclusion that Azerbaijani-Persian relations were ambiguous: if initially Persia declared its territorial claims to Azerbaijani lands, then Persia’s policy soon turned in the opposite direction, and the countries signed a number of agreements on foreign policy cooperation. The most important result of bilateral cooperation was the de jure recognition of Azerbaijan by Persia.

임오군란·청프전쟁·갑신정변과 일본 언론

After the outbreak of the Imo Mutiny, Japanese media was divided into hardliners and moderates. Among the hardliners, there were voices like 『Jiji Shimpo (時事新報)』 that incited the Sino-Japanese War, but the majority of hardliners focused on dispatching the military to quickly suppress Korean rioters. On the other hand, moderates displayed a cautious attitude towards sending troops to Korea. Meanwhile, Japanese media proposed various measures to block Qing's influence on Korea and preserve Korea's independent status.『Jiji Shimpo』 criticized Qing's efforts to strengthen its suzerainty over Korea as an act of aggression, while 『Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun (東京日日新聞)』 aimed to cooperate with Western powers to abolish Qing's suzerainty over Korea.
 The war between Qing and France stimulated Japan's expansionism. When the war broke out, Japanese media actively embraced the colonial strategies of Western powers. They were convinced that this was the way to preserve Japan's independence and to participate in the competition for dividing Qing's territories by Western powers.
 After the outbreak of the Gapsin Coup, hardliners such as 『Jiji Shimpo』 incited war with Qing. They believed that a victory in that war would not only make treaty revisions with Western powers possible but also allow Japan to participate in the competition for dividing Qing's territories by Western powers. On the other hand, advocates of moderation showed a cautious attitude toward a war with Qing. 『Choya Shimbun (朝野新聞)』 was not confident in the victory in that war, and 『Tokyo Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun (東京横浜毎日新聞)』 was skeptical about its effects. Meanwhile, 『Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun』 criticized hardliners who ignored the procedures of international law. However, these advocates of moderation, like the hardliners, did not deviate from the strong expansionism that had solidified after the Sino-French War.
 During this period, Japanese media formed a consensus that a war with Qing was inevitable in order to enter the ranks of modern civilized nations. They were also convinced that removing Qing's suzerainty over Korea was a way to prevent Russian aggression against Korea and, ultimately, to safeguard Japan's independence. At this time, Japanese media gradually strengthened its expansionist stance in foreign affairs.

Strategizing global health governance: unpacking opportunities and challenges for least developed nations within the WHO pandemic treaty framework.

Exploring the intricacies of the proposed WHO pandemic treaty, this paper underscores its potential benefits and challenges for Least Developed Nations (LDNs) in the global health landscape. While the treaty could elevate LDNs' access to vital resources, fortify health systems, and amplify their voice in global health governance, tangible challenges in safeguarding equitable access, protecting sovereignty, and ensuring compliance are illuminated. Concluding with targeted recommendations, the paper advocates for treaty revisions that assure resource access, safeguard LDNs' autonomy, and foster capacity-building. In essence, the paper emphasizes the imperative of genuinely empowering LDNs, crafting a pandemic treaty that establishes a more equitable, resilient, and inclusive global health future.

Renegotiating in good faith: How international treaty revisions can deepen cooperation

International agreements are often understood to help governments make credible commitments to future policy by limiting their ability to renege on their promises. Renegotiations of agreements are accordingly viewed as a threat to cooperation, since renegotiations call past commitments into question. But we know little about the frequency or nature of treaty renegotiations. When are international agreements renegotiated, and what effect does renegotiation have on international cooperation? Do most renegotiations indeed aim to backtrack on past commitments? Using the topical context of the trade regime, I collect new data on international treaty revisions, covering 310 preferential trade agreements signed since the year 2000. Around a quarter of these agreements have been amended in some form, and the supermajority of amendments result not in scaled back agreements, but in deeper commitments. Survival analysis shows that ‘like-minded’ countries with a shared language and similar voting patterns at the UN General Assembly are most likely to revise their commitments. In contrast, I do not find evidence to support the view of PTA revisions as ‘backsliding’ on past commitments. The effects of revisions on trade cooperation support the more cooperative view of revisions. An error-correction model shows revisions are associated with a long-run increase in export volumes. Renegotiations are not breakdowns in international relations, but opportunities for governments to renew their commitment to cooperation.

A Political Consideration on the Japan-Italy TreatyRevision Relations During the Inoue Kaoru Foreign Affairs Era (1879-1887) Centering on Japanese and Italian Primary Sources

In the early Meiji Era, the revision of the so-called “Unequal Treaties” was an issue of vital importance to the Japanese government. In particular, since the early 1880s Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru (1836-1915), unlike his predecessor Terashima Munenori (1832-1893), who had given priority to the acquisition of tariff autonomy, sought to include in the negotiations with foreign powers also the abolition of extraterritoriality. In this context, the Kingdom of Italy found itself playing a significant role in Inoue’s foreign policy in the 1870s after the Italian diplomats in Tokyo had shown a strong interest in treaty revision aiming to obtain the right for the Italian traders to circulate freely in Japan’s inland areas in exchange for the renunciation of their extraterritorial rights. Since the Japan-Italy Treaty Revision Relations during the management of the Japanese Foreign Ministry by Inoue (1879-1887) have not received sufficient consideration by either Italian or Japanese historiographies, this research aims to examine it in detail, focusing the analysis on the strategic importance that the Kingdom of Italy had for the Japan government in the 1880s. Some still unclarified issues will be illuminated mainly by making use of Japanese primary sources and integrating them with the Italian ones.

Компаративное исследование правового регулирования международного сотрудничества в сфере уголовного судопроизводства на Евразийском пространстве

Целью настоящего исследования является сравнительно-правовой анализ международно-правовых и внутригосударственных норм, регулирующих международное сотрудничество в уголовном судопроизводстве на Евразийском пространстве, выявление пробелов и коллизий, формулирование предложений по гармонизации и унификации правовых основ сотрудничества. Методологическую основу настоящей работы составил системный подход к компаративному анализу, отражающий состояние правовой регламентации международного сотрудничества в уголовном судопроизводстве на между[1]народном и внутригосударственном уровнях, сочетаемый с теоретико-правовым исследованием выявленных проблем. Отдельным направлением авторы обозначили «уникальные» нормы уголовно[1]процессуальных кодексов государств региона, обосновав их прогрессивность и сформулировав предложения их экстраполяции в международные договорные нормы и внутригосударственное право государств. Проведенное исследование позволило сделать вывод о неоднородности правовой регламентации международного сотрудничества в уголовном судопроизводстве и разноуровневой имплементации международных норм. Основные результаты проведенного исследования — определение имеющихся пробелов и коллизий, внесение предложений по их устранению, а также по совершенствованию имеющихся правовых норм. Основной вывод, который авторы сформулировали в процессе работы над темой, — это актуализация ревизии международных договоров, регулирующих вопросы сотрудничества в сфере уголовного судопроизводства (правовой помощи по уголовным делам), их новация и дальнейшая имплементация во внутригосударственные права государства Евразийского региона.

Russian Anti-Offshore Policy: Current Regulation and Perspectives

The paper outlines the regulatory landscape of an anti-offshore policy in Russia. In the first part of this paper, the author gives an overview of effective regulations against offshore businesses that Russia has adopted in the past decade. The CFC rules were developed and subsequently passed because of Russia’s participation in the BEPS project. They are of the highest importance for the implementation of the anti-offshore policy. Other measures include transfer-pricing rules, registers of beneficial owners, exchange of financial information and revision of double tax treaties with Cyprus, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Sanctions imposed by the EU, the USA, the UK and their allies against Russia, Russian individuals and companies in 2022 and counter-measures against Western countries and their residents introduced by Russian authorities also stimulate deoffshorization of the Russian economy. They have limited the free movement of capital between offshore holding companies and their Russian subsidiaries and, consequently, have contributed to the isolation of the Russian economy from the rest of the world, including its offshore infrastructure. The second part of the paper deals with the proposals for the Russian anti-offshore policy. The author shares his ideas on how to make the policy for deoffshorization of the Russian economy more effective. A few of these anti-offshore actions have already been implemented in draft laws and are currently being considered in the Russian Parliament. All of the measures that are being considered would result in unfavourable tax implications and possible damage to the reputations of those Russian individuals and organizations who still use offshore companies and trusts for the purposes of minimizing taxation and maintaining anonymity. The most important action proposed by the author for the implementation of the anti-offshore policy is the forced deoffshorization of strategic enterprises. Passing the relevant law would entail fundamental changes to the Russian business environment and result in the restoration of economic sovereignty over the Russian economy.

Two Ways of Completing the European Fundamental Rights Union: Amendment to vs. Reinterpretation of Article 51 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

AbstractThe aim of this Article is to show that the enforcement of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (‘TEU’) values vis-à-vis Member States could benefit from the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (‘CFR’) also in instances where the current interpretation of Article 51(1) CFR prevents this. This would be the case if the CFR were also applicable to purely domestic cases, eg—but not only—with regard to fundamental rights-relevant violations related to the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU. In this case, the European Court of Justice, which has already partly taken this path recently, could prevent the violation of core EU values. The most important historical challenge to those values in Europe today is the systematic dismantling of the rule of law and democracy in certain Member States. It is the very purpose of fundamental rights to provide answers to such dangers. When one speaks of the rule of law and democracy, one necessarily also means fundamental rights. This Article thus advocates an EU which perceives itself as a complete fundamental rights union. While the traditional interpretation of Article 51(1) CFR had a balanced division of competence between the EU and its Member States in mind, the disregard of Article 2 TEU values triggers a clausula rebus sic stantibus: the neat federal balance can only be upheld if both ends stick to the original promise made. It demonstrates two ways of completing the European fundamental rights union: treaty revision, on the one hand, and reinterpretation of Article 51 CFR, on the other hand. Both ways have in common that only a complete fundamental rights union can establish a system of fundamental rights protection that is uniform and thus equality-preserving in cases where national fundamental rights fail to provide sufficient protection.

Explaining continuity and change: The case of the Euratom Treaty

Abstract The Euratom Treaty is one of the EU Treaties. It was adopted already in 1957, but unlike the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) it has not been amended in substance. The article has two aims, which are analyzed through the lens of historical institutionalism, an approach characterized by its focus on the effects of institutions over time. First, it states and discusses some possible reasons as to why the Euratom Treaty has not been revised. Second, it shows that although the Treaty has not been formally amended by treaty revision, an incremental gradual change has occurred anyway through displacement, layering, drift, conversion, and exhaustion. This change is more than profound: it provides the Euratom with a new rationale.

Review: The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics, by Mae Ngai

“The myriad nations all trade with each other; So how can the Chinese be refused?” (p. 271). Huang Zunxian, the Qing consul general at San Francisco from 1882 through 1885, questioned and bemoaned the unequal commercial and immigration relationships between China and the emergent capitalist Anglo-American world. It is the underlying forces that Mae Ngai’s The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics traces in the domain of what she calls “race and money” (p. 5), where two contradictory tendencies of immigration restriction and capitalist expansion were inextricably linked. In seeking to understand how such a radical idea as Chinese exclusion could turn into widely accepted practices sanctioned by national legislation in the United States and the British settler colonies, Ngai’s book opens up new vistas for transnational histories.Ngai’s use of transnationalism and diaspora as frameworks of analysis brings into focus distinct strands of arguments for Chinese exclusion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book sets out to slay the myth in California that portrayed Chinese gold miners as unfree, slave-like coolies. Ngai contends that Chinese prospectors, as free as miners from elsewhere, conducted diverse mining practices either through partnership and cooperative structures or as wage workers. In Australia, by contrast, concerns about an overrun by heathen Chinese immigrants, due to close proximity to China, became a key motivating factor in Victoria’s anti-Chinese activism. Ngai argues cogently that their racial fear lay in “precisely the fact that Chinese were free migrants” (p. 115), an idea opposite to anticoolieism. Xenophobia and anticoolieism worked in tandem with white labor’s anxiety in the United States, Australia, and South Africa to propel analogous efforts for immigration restrictions.In Ngai’s account, colonial and American anti-Chinese resistance on economic, racial, and moral grounds necessarily entangled with domestic and international politics, underscoring the conflicting interests of imperial and colonial governments as well as the unbalanced relationships between intersecting empires. The Afghan crisis of 1888, which involved Chinese passengers on a Hong Kong–based trading ship, highlights the political dynamics where white Australians’ anxiety over a growing Chinese population collided with London’s trade and political concerns in Asia. It took years before Australian colonial officials could secure the authority to restrict Chinese immigration through local legislation. Alarmed by anti-Chinese discrimination abroad, the decaying Qing Empire struggled to seek diplomatic solutions. Ngai presents two episodes that are less-known than the Burlingame Treaty revisions: an on-site investigation of Chinese immigrants’ conditions in Australia ordered by the Zongli Yamen in 1887 and the intense negotiations by the Chinese ambassador in London with British officials in 1903–1904 to protect the basic rights of incoming Chinese workers in Transvaal, South Africa. Nevertheless, Qing’s downfall could afford little protection for Chinese overseas.To infuse into the book a sense of bitterness at the mistreatment of Chinese overseas and frustration toward Qing’s diplomatic ineptitude, Ngai deftly picks lines from Huang Zunxian’s mournful poem “Expulsion of the Immigrants” as sectional epigraphs. Thirteen chapters in four sections constitute this book, with seven devoted to the comparison of Chinese immigrants in California and Victoria, four to the episode of Chinese indentured mining laborers in Witwatersrand, South Africa, and two toward analyzing the consolidation of Chinese exclusion. The narrative could flow more evenly if Chapter 3 about Chinese miners’ pidgin English, though interesting in itself, were integrated elsewhere.

ISDS Reform in the Context of China’s IIAs

Abstract The investor–state dispute settlement mechanism enables investors to seek remedies in the face of a violation of related international investment agreements, which are crucial to maintaining the standards of investor protection that have been consented to by the contracting parties. On the other hand, more and more problems in the system have been exposed as the number of investor–state dispute settlement cases has increased. These range from substantive issues, such as the treatment granted to investors, to procedural ones, such as cost management and related procedures. Debates on investor–state dispute settlement reform have led to various options for reshaping the relevant mechanisms. Amid the new trend of investment liberalization and facilitation, China is undergoing a new round of bilateral investment treaty revision and free trade agreement negotiation. How the investor–state dispute settlement process is to be framed boils down to how China assesses its own interest vis-à-vis its partners and how it prioritises its objectives in international investment agreement negotiation with its partners. It is submitted that China should take a calculated risk on the investor–state dispute settlement provisions in international investment agreements with adequate consideration of competing interests.

Synthesizing a Dual-Definition of Façade in the Western Palaces of the Yuanming Yuan: Art, Politics, and Place-making in the Garden of Perfect Brightness

The Imperial Summer Palace, also known as Yuanming Yuan or Garden of Perfect Brightness, emerged as the center of the Chinese Empire during the eighteenth century and served as the official residence of five Qing Dynasty emperors. However, tension percolating in the mid-nineteenth century regarding British demand for treaty revision resulted in the Second Opium War and the burning of Yuanming Yuan in 1860. The façades and structures of the “European” or “Western” style palaces of the garden were the only buildings not completely obliterated by the fire and have become a symbol of Yuanming Yuan as a whole. This essay analyzes several engravings of the European-style palaces and gardens by court artist Yilantai (1749-1786) and documentary photographs depicting the remaining traces of the palaces taken by German photographer Ernst Ohlmer (1847-1927). The buildings continue to act as a façades in the way their reproduction over three centuries creates an uncanny mixture of the factual and the fantastic. In comparison to the engravings, the photographs might be understood as carrying an indexical documentary potential. However, by examining these two sets together in a more synthesized manner, both present the buildings in a theatrical yet formal method of depiction: they exhibit the very “fairyland” quality Emperor Qianlong had in mind when commissioning their construction, and their simultaneously decorative and void structures provide the backdrop onto which the complex synthesis of art, politics, and place-making in China are projected. After situating the duality of theatricality and illusion alongside the historical framing of Yuanming Yuan, this paper concludes with an analysis of the Yuanming Yuan Ruins Park, a tourist attraction where the factual and the fantastic that marked the buildings in the past continues today.

Chinese populism in the 1920s, extraterritoriality and International Law

Recent scholarship and commentaries on populism and international law often focus on the rise of right-wing populist regimes in contemporary politics. This paper invites a shift of attention to populism in the (semi)colonies in the process of national liberation and anticolonialism, in order to achieve a more historically and socially informed understanding about the relationship between populism and international law. The paper chooses the populist movements in China against extraterritoriality and imperialism in the 1920s. I will ask what particular frustrations and ideologies motivated the populist movements in the 1920s. Drawing on Laclau’s theory, I will analyse why and how exactly these movements were populist. In addition, the direct and indirect consequences of the Chinese populism will be examined to understand its ramifications not only on the revision of unequal treaties and the dismantling of extraterritoriality, but more broadly on the development of international law. Using this historical episode, the paper highlights populism’s emancipatory potential of mobilising resistance against repression and correcting systemic injustice, as well as the intrinsic ambivalence of such potential.

The Future of Europe: The Beginning of a New Era in EU Governance?

Abstract The paper offers insight into the current practice of the passerelle(s), the enhanced cooperation and the flexibility clause, which may serve in the future the implementation of the Commission’s White Paper on the Future of Europe (2017) without Treaty revision, in light of recent developments in the policy of the new Commission, Council and European Parliament on the future of EU integration. The ex-ante and ex-post control mechanisms available at Member State level concerning the freedom of their governments to support such European initiatives, are also discussed from a comparative perspective. The paper concludes by presenting the risks associated with the activation of these mechanism of integration.

Differentiated Integration and Disintegration in the EU: Brexit, the Eurozone Crisis, and Other Troubles

Abstract This article looks at theories of differentiated integration and disintegration in the wake of the Eurozone crisis and the Brexit referendum. It advances four distinct, albeit interrelated, arguments with respect to these proposals. First, it could be contested whether certain policy areas should be pushed to the ‘outer core’ of European integration. Second, it would be very difficult to disentangle those areas to be pushed to the ‘outer core’ from those areas remaining in the ‘inner core’. Third, the legal and institutional arrangements for organizing differentiated integration are equally important. Fourth, even if the problems adumbrated above could be addressed satisfactorily, the emerging arrangements for differentiated integration would differ little from the degree of flexibility or variation that already exists within some of those areas. Brexit may be viewed as an opportunity for reform to ‘fix’ those issues that are regarded as problematic in the design or functioning of the EU. Should it appear desirable to pursue differentiated integration, the better course of action would be to build on those opportunities for differentiated integration that are offered by the EU Treaties. Any forthcoming Treaty revision to take stock of Brexit could be used to give added impetus to differentiated integration.

Brexit and the limits of Article 50 Treaty of the European Union

AbstractThis article aims to analyse the limits of Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) which expressly consecrates a Member State’s unilateral right to leave the Union. However, the provision seems to raise more questions than it answers due to the lack of concrete legal guidelines, and Brexit has underlined this reality. For example, the exit procedure contemplates the possibility of signing a withdrawal agreement with the European Union (EU), but it does not discipline its content. In our opinion, any agreement must regulate three questions: fundamental rights, financial settlement, and borders. A second limitation refers to the possibility of a Member State withdrawing its withdrawal notice. This question has recently been decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a manner that leaves the EU without any say in the process. Finally, the provision does not deal with the constitutional implications of withdrawal: treaty revision, institutional deadlock, and institutional representation. In sum, these critical omissions are analysed considering the relevant legal doctrine, jurisprudence, as well as the Brexit process. It also proposed that Article 50 of the TEU be amended in the future.

The Legislative Framework of Energy Networks in the European Union – Realizing the European Commission Energy Policies

The paper aims to provide an oversight on the new European Union’s energy policy: the establishment and functioning of Europe-wide energy transportation networks. A common European energy strategy and corresponding policy of the European Union has been established after the revision of the fundamental Treaties and the establishment of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The aim is to provide the delivery of sustainable, secure and competitive energy necessary for the functioning of the European Union. The paper argues that such steps are in accordance with the European Union’s new competence, without exceeding it.