The Role of the ECJ Beyond EU Law

When intended to complement EU law or to enlarge its application to third parties, international treaties can empower the ECJ with additional tasks beyond the realm of EU law. This paper explores both the potential and legal constraints of the ECJ’s extra powers, building upon some selected cases of practice. It argues that if one looks at this practice in depth through the prism of the purposes for which such special category of treaties were enacted and the reasons that led to them, the common denominator for involving the ECJ can be identified in the need to safeguard their consistency with the fundamental role the ECJ enjoys in the EU legal order under Article 19 TEU. The reference to the ECJ, both for solving disputes between themselves and for protecting individual rights as guaranteed by EU law (or by provisions which are identical in substance to it), is not just in line with the principle of institutional conferral. It is also a route the contracting parties are bound to take in order to respect the autonomy of EU law.