H v Council: Another Court breakthrough in the Common Foreign and Security Policy

In the summer of 2016, the European Court of Justice has issued two important decisions that will further shape the legal dimension of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Despite this largely intergovernmental sphere of law (the former Second Pillar) being merged into the unified ‘EU’ at the Treaty of Lisbon, the pillar’s shadow still lives on.

Lasting evidence of CFSP as a separate but integrated sphere of law allow for it to be titled ‘CFSP law’, with judgments of the Court arising from interinstitutional and direct action litigation, permitting its legal development.

The two judgments, Tanzania (Case C-263/14) and H v. Council (Case C-455/14 P) address different questions, and with a third, Rosneft (Case C-72/15), being delivered later in 2016. This sequence of judgments demonstrates the fluidity of CFSP dynamics.

In this blog post, analysis focused primarily on the H v. Council judgment, and specifically, given its peculiarity, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in CFSP.