Reinforcing Rule of Law Oversight in the European Union


Book Description

This book provides an analysis of key approaches to rule of law oversight in the EU and identifies deeper theoretical problems.




Rule of Law Promotion in the European Neighbourhood Policy


Book Description

This dissertation analyzes the interplay of normative and strategic aspects in the European Neighborhood Policy. The book argues that the EU's Rule of Law promotion policy in four neighboring countries - Moldova, Morocco, Tunisia, and Ukraine - is best explained by combining institutional, ideational, interdependence, and third-country related factors. The study brings abstract concepts from the EU foreign policy literature, such as normative power or composite policy, into the realm of empirical research. In substantive terms, the study investigates the EU's Rule of Law policy-making and the adopted policy outputs in four issue areas: counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, anti-corruption, and judicial reform. The comparative analysis of the case studies calls into question the common assumption that the EU's institutional features pre-dispose it to act as a normative power in international relations. It is rather shown that third-country-related factors need to feature prominently in future explanatory frameworks. With respect to the debate on the nature of the EU's power, the study concludes that hybrid projections prevail. Dissertation.




EU Rule of Law Promotion


Book Description

Do EU institutions have an influence on the implementation of the rule of law in potential candidate countries and, if so, of what kind? During the compliance monitoring process related to the effective rule of law and democracy the EU Commission tests and criticizes the effectiveness of the judiciary and strengthens the rule of law in preparation for accession. In the Western Balkans this was a process fraught with difficulties. Despite the fact that academic scholarship and democratic politics agree on rule of law as a legitimizing principle for the exercise of state authority, there is no uniform European standard for institution-building or monitoring activities by the EU in this area. With focus on the reform of the judiciary in five case study countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, this empirical research investigates the EU's transformative power with regard to the effectiveness of rule of law and judicial sector reform in its infancy. It analyses the depth and limitations of EU rule of law promotion in the Western Balkans and presents policy recommendations intended to address the shortcomings in judiciary reform. This book aims to fill the gap in the existing academic scholarship of EU politics, law and Western Balkans literature.




Variation in EU External Policies as a Virtue


Book Description

The scholarship on European Union external relations ties good performance to enhanced coherence across EU policies, often understood as uniformity, and interprets any sign of variation as incoherence and double standards. This article challenges the virtuousness of such uniformity in the case of EU rule of law promotion in the neighbourhood and examines the parameters of the possible and the necessary. The findings reveal that variation in EU rule of law conceptions is inherent to the EU approach and inevitable due to the nature of the rule of law concept and the studied political context. Moreover, this variation in itself does not entail incoherence of EU rule of law promotion, as a shared understanding of the core meaning of the rule of law frames EU efforts across cases, and is even desirable for effective rule of law promotion, under law and development theory and practice.




External Democratization by the EU. How the European Neighbourhood Policy can shape Political Systems


Book Description

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2018 im Fachbereich Politik - Thema: Internationale Beziehungen, Note: 1,3, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (Institut für Politikwissenschaften), Veranstaltung: Rule of Law and European Integration in Post-Soviet Societies, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This paper will focus on the two parts of the promotion of democracy and the Rule of Law by the EU but also Russia as a counterpart to it. It is indispensable not to see a connection between both influences, the European one and the soviet or Russian one because of the soviet history of the country. We also should take into consideration the geopolitical aspect of this threefold relationship. The collapse of Communist systems in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) marked a fundamental turning point in their domestic development. The transformation of post-communist systems included not only the partly won democratization of the political systems, but also the transformation of virtually all social subsystems. Over the years, it soon became apparent that the former communist states were performing very differently in this task and achieved very different successes. While in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic States, functioning democratic systems and pluralistic societies have been established relatively quickly, many of the states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union remained in stagnation and chaos or developed into authoritarian systems. On the other hand some states evolved from some fundamental steps towards democratization like for example Georgia where the so called Rose Revolution, a peaceful change of power, took place. This revolution allowed the country not only to transition to another political system but also towards a change of Rule of Law in an echo of the European thought. Important to know in this case is that during the Rose Revolution in 2003 and right after this event the European Union (EU) increasingly supported Georgia through a diverse set of measures – especially covering the financial aspect in order to develop a more independent judicial system. Therefore, this paper will focus on the lack of judicial independence as a long-standing problem in Georgia, dating back to Soviet times. The EU is trying to solve this problem with the help of projects and agreements. Georgia is (progressively) approaching the EU by signing an association agreement in 2014 “in which the country undertook to pursue comprehensive reforms, particularly in the areas of democracy, the Rule of Law, human rights and basic civil liberties, good governance, market economy and sustainable development.”




Enhancing the Rule of Law in the European Union’s External Action


Book Description

This timely book scrutinises the mechanisms for guaranteeing respect for the rule of law in the European legal system. Focusing on external relations, it assesses the capacity of the EU to disseminate these values as a global actor and offers novel suggestions for how this capacity could be exercised more effectively.




The Rule of Law in the European Union


Book Description

This is a book about the internal dimension of the rule of law in the European Union (EU). The EU is a community based on law which adheres to and promotes a set of common values between the Member States. The preservation of these values (such as legality, legal certainty, prohibition of arbitrariness, respect for fundamental rights) is pivotal to the success of European integration and the well-being of the individuals within it. Yet, the EU rule of law suffers from an imposter syndrome and has been the subject of criticism: ie that it is only part of the EU agenda in order to legitimise sweeping new powers and policies, and that it plays little or no role in promoting a culture of compliance for either deviant EU Institutions or for Member States. This book will examine whether the EU rule of law deserves those criticisms. It will offer an analytical guide to the EU rule of law by conceptualising it and locating it within the sources of EU law. It will then ask whether the EU is based on the rule of law - a question which is answered in the affirmative, but one which has to be considered in the context of compliance and the overall effectiveness of the EU enforcement acquis. It is argued that while the EU means well in its aim to preserve unity in an increasingly diversified Europe, the extent to which it can pave the way to a better world (based on a transnational rule of law concept akin to good governance and improvement of citizens' lives) is dependent on the commitment of all European integration stakeholders to the EU project.




EU Enlargement and the Failure of Conditionality


Book Description

Among the criteria for accession to the European Union are democracy and the Rule of Law. In the insightful analysis offered by the author of this book, these concepts - while admirable and even necessary criteria in principle - are almost impossible to measure, and any judgement grounded in them will always be difficult to justify. In his words, 'by including analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law within the field of the EU enlargement law, the Union entered an unstable terrain of vague causal connections and blurred definitions.' Dr Kochenov addresses this problem by proceeding as follows: 1. Outlining EU enlargement law in general, including the principle of conditionality and the role played by the analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law in enlargement preparation; 2. Focusing on the role actually played by the monitoring of democracy and the Rule of Law in ten candidate countries, scrutinizing the way the EU used the legal tools and competences outlined in its enlargement law. The book adopts the EU's own understanding of democracy and the Rule of Law, as derived directly from the substance of the numerous legal and political instruments issued by the Community Institutions and especially the Commission in the course of the pre-accession process. In this way it demonstrates the actual - as opposed to the officially announced - role played by the assessment of democracy and the Rule of Law in the candidate countries in the regulation of enlargement. Many formidable inconsistencies in the application of the conditionality principle are thus laid bare. This leads the author to a series of recommendations on policy and procedure that he demonstrates could be profitably applied to the regulation of current and future accessions, using the Commission's own structure of monitoring pre-accession reforms in the three areas of the legislature, executive, and judiciary in candidate countries. The probity and soundness of these recommendations, firmly grounded as they are in the actual pre-accession monitoring and its consequences for the pre-accession progress of ten Eastern European countries admitted to the EU in 2004 and 2007, will greatly interest policymakers and scholars concerned with the future of European integration.




A Citizen’s Guide to the Rule of Law


Book Description

In our daily lives, the rule of law matters more than anything and yet remains an invisible presence. We trust in the rule of law to protect us from governmental overreach, mafia godfathers, or the will of the majority. We take the rule of law for granted, often failing to recognize its demise—until it is too late. For under attack it is, not only in the growing number of authoritarian countries around the world but in Europe, too. As a citizen’s guide, this book explains in plain language what the rule of law is, why it matters, and why we have to defend it. The starting point is to ask why EU efforts to promote the rule of law in candidate countries have succeeded or failed, and what this tells us about what is happening inside the EU. The authors move on to suggest ways of strengthening the rule of law in Europe and beyond. This book is a call to action in defense of the most precious human invention of all time.