THE LISBON TREATY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF STATES’ SOVEREIGNTY: A FEW COMMENTS
THE LISBON TREATY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF STATES’ SOVEREIGNTY: A FEW COMMENTS

Summary/Abstract: The principles of international law must be regarded as a whole, the violation or the restriction of one principle leading to the implicit violation of the whole body of ius cogens. The European law principles and legal norms, in our opinion, even if they belong to a legal order of integration, mustn’t be considered as isolated or outside from the international law. European law is a regional legal order, specific to the European project but it is still a legal order penetrated by the international law. EU member states are preserving within EU their sovereign character, because EU is not yet a federation. Thus, due to their double quality, as European law subjects, but also, as international law subjects, EU member states find themselves in a complex legal situation. In our opinion, international law and the principle of sovereignty, as ius cogens, stay at the top of the legal hierarchy of incident legal norms. Therefore, EU member states must respect, above all, ius cogens, as a body of law protecting the state on international field and by extension, on the legal relations inside the EU, between EU member states. The obligation of EU member states to comply with ius cogens irrespective to the legal order (European law, international law) wherever they act, is an obligation derived from their sovereign character. Sovereignty of a state is the essential quality that demands protection both within legal orders of cooperation and of integration.

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