The importance of international relations of the EU-common commercial policy: An approach of legal- and legal historic development

Abstract

Most approaches to EU law focus on the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. However, other approaches may occasionally be necessary in order to identify more nuanced aspects of the development of EU law. A good example could be the common commercial policy. Common commercial policy for a long time played a central (almost dominant) role in the development of EU external relations law, as the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union points out. However, in addition to the case law, the study aims to provide a specific account of the circumstances and early stages of the birth of the common commercial policy: the international context, the state of the common commercial policy in the early period of the EEC Treaty, and the European Commission’s approach to the policy area. In addition, the paper examines the positions taken by the EU legal literature on the common commercial policy at that time, which point to some of the challenges to the policy’s content and scope. These circumstances and factors, in addition to supporting the pragmatic approach of the Court of Justice of the European Union, underlines the influence of the international environment, the Commission and academia on the development of the common commercial policy.