Joining the Dots: External Norms, AFSJ Directives and the EU's Role in Global Legal Order

This article considers how external norms, i.e. instruments of public international law, including but not limited to Conventions, agreements and treaties qua norms ‘internalise’ into 17 proposed and adopted Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) Directives of the last legislative cycle of the EU, from 2009-2014. The article considers select Directives, namely (i) the first EU criminal law directive, (ii) the first AFSJ directive struck down by the Court, (iii) a Directive employing a norm common to internal and external rule-making, (iv) UN Conventions in AFSJ Directives and (v) Directives omitting the promotion of any external norms. The study of the promotion of external norms is argued to reveal much about the relationship between the ‘external’ and ‘internal’ of EU law and policy and the evolution of its AFSJ. The EU’s participation in these external norms is also relevant for the study of the EU’s role in the world.