The Department of Legal Studies cordially invites you to its monthly Brown Bag Seminar, held on October 11, 12 -1 pm. Prof. Gasbarri will present his paper “Lex Specialis and Eurocentrism”.
You can find the abstract below.
The seminar will be held in hybrid format.
Zoom details:
Meeting ID: 989 0552 8623
Passcode: 925516
To join in person: QS C-201
Abstract
This article provides a novel perspective on the debated issue concerning the special status of the EU under the rules of international responsibility. Relying on the studies on decentering Eurocentrism, it criticizes the European Commission narratives under which the EU possess a special nature due to the degree of integration with its member states. In particular, the paper contests the narrative under which the EU represents a role model for other organizations, thanks to which it can externalize internal features and demand third parties to bear the costs, irrespectively of the general regime of international law. It claims that normative control and the competence-based criteria of attribution of conduct do not apply of the lex specialis principle of international responsibility but rely on the lack of an agreed conceptualization of what international organizations are. They reflect a model in which the EU has the capacity to develop a legal system separate from international law in which member states are perceived as organs of the organization losing their autonomy as sovereign subjects of international law. Reinterpreting the lex specialis principle and the principle of speciality of international organizations, the paper proposes an alternative non-Eurocentric criterion of attribution of conduct capable of addressing certain issues raised by the EU, but also applicable to all international organizations.