Security council

The United Nations Security Council has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and is the only body of the UN that can authorize the use of force (including in the context of peace-keeping operations), or override member nations sovereignty by issuing binding Security Council resolutions.

Unit 3.

International law and the law of the european union text a. International law

In a global economy, law is globalizing too. International law can refer to three things: public international law, private international law or conflict of laws, and the law of supranational organizations.

Public international law concerns relationships among sovereign nations. It has a special status as law because there is no international police force, and courts lack the capacity to penalize disobedience. The sources for public international law to develop are custom, practice and treaties between sovereign nations. The United Nations, founded under the UN Charter, is one of the most important international organizations. It was established after the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War. International agreements, like the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, and international bodies such as the International Court of Justice, International Labour Organization, the World Trade Organization, or the International Monetary Fund, also form a growing part of public international law.

Conflict of laws (or "private international law") concerns which jurisdiction a legal dispute between private parties should be heard in and which jurisdiction's law should be applied. Today, businesses are increasingly capable of shifting capital and labour supply chains across borders, as well as trading with overseas businesses. This increases the number of disputes outside a unified legal framework.

European Union law is the first and thus far only example of a supranational legal framework. In the EU, sovereign nations have pooled their authority through a system of courts and political institutions. They have the ability to enforce legal norms against and for member states and citizens, in a way that public international law does not. As the European Court of Justice said in 1962, European Union law constitutes "a new legal order of international law" for the mutual social and economic benefit of the member states.

TEXT B. What is the EU Law? (part I)

The European Union (EU) was created in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (the TEU), generally called the Maastricht Treaty. The EU consists of three different Communities: the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community), the European Community (the EC, formerly known as the European Economic Community Treaty, or the EEC treaty – also known as the Treaty of Rome), and EURATOM (European Atomic Energy Community Treaty).

Put simply, the original aim of the Community was economic integration: to create a common market, later defined as a Single Internal Market, in which there could be free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. This was to be achieved by the creation of a free trade area, where Member States agreed to remove all customs duties (import taxes) and quotas (restrictions on the amount of goods imported across Member States` frontiers, or borders) between themselves, and a customs union, in which all members agree to impose on goods coming into the area from non-member states a common level of duty (the Common Customs Tariff, or CCT).

The Law of the European Union is the unique legal system which operates alongside the laws of Member States of the European Union. EU is not a federal government, nor is it an intergovernmental organization. It constitutes a new legal order in international law for the mutual social and economic benefit of Member States (sometimes classified as supranational law).

The three sources of EU law are the Treaties (EC, TEU, etc.), secondary legislation enacted by the EC (such as regulations and directives), and general principles, including fundamental human rights, subsidiarity, and citizenship of the EU for every national of a Member State.

The Law of the European Union has what is known as a three pillar structure. The first, the oldest and most important “pillar” deals with law concerning economic and social rights and how European institutions are set up. This is found in the Treaty on European Communities, signed in Rome 1957 and subsequently amended by other treaties concluded between the Member States (ECSC, EC and EURATOM). The second and the third pillars were established under the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty, 1992). The second pillar concerns the European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The third pillar concerns Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (formerly called Justice and Home Affairs).