EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’

Abstract

‘When I was your age, Pluto was a planet’ was a popular joke after the celestial body’s reclassification as a ‘dwarf planet’. In many ways, the story of Pluto is an appropriate metaphor for the United Kingdom after Brexit. Just as textbooks on astronomy had to be updated to reflect Pluto’s changed status, legal scholarship needs to adapt to the fact that the UK is relegating itself into the outer orbits of the European system of integration and cooperation, yet remains unable to break free from the centre’s gravitational pull. Crucially, the UK has become an object of EU external action, rather than a subject that can manipulate the levers from the inside. This change is also of particular significance for the scholarship of EU external relations. Highlighting, organising, and explaining the changes that Brexit causes for the field and with a view to charting its way forward, this article argues that the UK’s withdrawal will contribute to the further normalisation of EU external relations law as a field of scholarship. Following a brief explanation of why EU external relations law is a doubly peculiar area of scholarship and an overview of the origins and development of EU external relations law as a field, the article elaborates on three main consequences of Brexit for EU external relations law research and explains how each contributes to normalisation: disposing of the most ‘awkward member’, boosting reforms for greater effectiveness, and infusing a sense of geopolitical realism.

Full text

Europe and the World:
A law review
Special issue: Considering EU External Relations after Brexit
Article
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’
Joris Larik
Leiden University, the Netherlands; j.e.larik@luc.leidenuniv.nl
How to Cite: J. Larik, ‘EU external relations law and Brexit: “When Pluto was a planet”’ [2020] 4(1):
3. Europe and the World: A law review [18]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ewlj.2020.21.
Submission date: 6 July 2019; Acceptance date: 7 February 2020; Publication date: 2 March 2020
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This article has been peer reviewed through the journal’s standard double blind peer-review, where both the
reviewers and authors are anonymised during review.
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License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited •DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ewlj.2020.21.
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Abstract
‘When I was your age, Pluto was a planet’ was a popular joke after the celestial body’s reclassification as
a ‘dwarf planet’. In many ways, the story of Pluto is an appropriate metaphor for the United Kingdom
after Brexit. Just as textbooks on astronomy had to be updated to reflect Pluto’s changed status, legal
scholarship needs to adapt to the fact that the UK is relegating itself into the outer orbits of the European
system of integration and cooperation, yet remains unable to break free from the centre’s gravitational
pull. Crucially, the UK has become an object of EU external action, rather than a subject that can
manipulate the levers from the inside. This change is also of particular significance for the scholarship
of EU external relations. Highlighting, organising, and explaining the changes that Brexit causes for
the field and with a view to charting its way forward, this article argues that the UK’s withdrawal will
contribute to the further normalisation of EU external relations law as a field of scholarship. Following
a brief explanation of why EU external relations law is a doubly peculiar area of scholarship and an
overview of the origins and development of EU external relations law as a field, the article elaborates
on three main consequences of Brexit for EU external relations law research and explains how each
contributes to normalisation: disposing of the most ‘awkward member’, boosting reforms for greater
effectiveness, and infusing a sense of geopolitical realism.
Keywords: Brexit; normative power; Lisbon Treaty; comparative foreign relations law; United Kingdom
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 1

1. Introduction
‘When I was your age, Pluto was a planet’ was a popular joke for a while after the International
Astronomical Union had reclassified Pluto as a ‘dwarf planet’ in 2006.
1
More than a decade later, the
younger generations have grown up with the idea of Pluto as a relatively small, trans-Neptunian object
with a cold and hostile environment trapped in the outer orbit of the Solar System, unable to break free
from the centre’s gravitational pull. In many ways, the story of Pluto is an appropriate metaphor for the
United Kingdom after Brexit. Just as textbooks on astronomy had to be updated to reflect Pluto’s changed
status, legal scholarship has to adapt to the fact that the UK ‘plutoed’
2
itself in the European system of
integration and cooperation. While no longer being an EU Member State, however, the UK of course has
not left ‘Europe’ in the geographical sense. Economically, moreover, the European Union will remain
its main trading partner for the foreseeable future.
3
This is due to interdependence of supply chains and
geographic proximity. Hence, in estimating the economic impact of Brexit, economists use so-called
‘gravity models’, according to which ‘the level of commerce between two countries is in proportion to
their size and proximity’.4
On 1 February 2020, the Withdrawal Agreement entered into force and serves as the framework
for EU–UK relations during the transition period.
5
On this day, the UK’s relationship with its closest
neighbours, allies, and trading partners, including its legal relationships, changed fundamentally. Already
well before ‘Brexit day’ and soon after the referendum of June 2016, a constant stream of publications
on the legal dimension of Brexit started emerging.
6
This is an ironic twist if we recall Michael Gove’s
infamous statement that ‘Britain has had enough of experts’.
7
Brexit is arguably the greatest thing that
has happened to experts on the EU since the Lisbon Treaty. It is nothing less than a giant cornucopia
of new, complex legal questions and extensive materials that provide ample opportunities for exposure
(or ‘valorisation’ or ‘impact’ as it is called in different academic assessment frameworks) to the wider
public. As in many a crisis or divorce, lawyers stand to benefit, including the academic kind. Brexit is no
exception to this.8
Crucially, the UK has become an object of EU external action rather than a subject that can
manipulate the levers from the inside. Hence, this change is particularly significant in the field of EU
external relations scholarship, which unsurprisingly has already started to respond to this development
as well.
9
By highlighting, organising, and explaining these changes, and with a view to charting the
future of this field of scholarship, this article argues that Brexit will contribute to the further normalisation
1International Astronomical Union, Resolution B6, ‘Pluto’, 24 August 2006.
2
‘Pluto’s revenge: “Word of the Year” award’ (CNN, 7 January 2007) <http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/01/07/word.of.the.
year/> accessed 27 December 2019.
3
Matthew Ward, Statistics on UK-EU trade, House of Commons Library Briefing Paper Number 7851 (11 January 2019) 3,
found that ‘[t]aken as a bloc, the EU is the UK’s largest trading partner’, accounting for ‘44% of UK exports and 53% imports’
in 2017.
4
David Goodman, ‘Brexiteers Bet the U.K. Can Defy Gravity in Post-Divorce Trade’ (Bloomberg, 16 November
2018) <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-16/brexiteers-bet-the-u-k-can-defy-gravity-in- post-divorce-trade>
accessed 27 December 2019; see further Graham Gudgin, Ken Coutts, Neil Gibson and Jordan Buchanan, ‘The Role of Gravity
Models in Estimating the Economic Impact of Brexit’, Working Papers wp490, Centre for Business Research, University of
Cambridge (2017).
5
Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and
the European Atomic Energy Community [2019] OJ C 384I/1 [hereinafter: Withdrawal Agreement].
6See, among others, Federico Fabbrini (ed), The Law & Politics of Brexit (OUP 2017); Michael Dougan (ed), The UK after
Brexit: Legal and Policy Challenges (Intersentia 2017); Kenneth Armstrong, Brexit Time: Leaving the EU – Why, How and
When? (CUP 2017); Jennifer A. Hillman and Gary Horlick (eds), Getting to Brexit: Legal Aspects of the Process of the UK’s
Withdrawal from the EU (Institute of International Economic Law 2017).
7
Henry Mance, ‘Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove’ (Financial Times, 3 June 2016) <https://www.ft.com/content/
3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c> accessed 27 December 2019.
8
See also David Segal, ‘Brexit Is Messy. London’s Lawyers Are Cashing In’ (New York Times, 31 March 2019)
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/business/law-firms-brexit.html> accessed 27 December 2019.
9
Adam Łazowski and Ramses A. Wessel, ‘The External Dimension of Withdrawal from the European Union’ [April 2016]
Revue des Affaires Européennes 623; Jed Odermatt, ‘Brexit and International Law: Disentangling Legal Orders’ (2017) 31
Emory International Law Review 1051; Ramses A. Wessel, ‘Consequences of Brexit for International Agreements Concluded by
the EU and Its Member States’ (2018) 55 Common Market Law Review 101.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 2

of the study of EU external relations law. To elaborate on this point, the article starts with a brief
explanation of why EU external relations law started out as – and still largely is – a doubly peculiar area
of scholarship, followed by an overview of the origins and development of EU external relations law as a
field of research. Subsequently, the article highlights three main consequences of Brexit for EU external
relations scholarship and explains how each contributes to the normalisation of EU external relations law
as a field. Normalisation is understood here as giving the EU a stronger semblance of a federal-style actor,
rather than a hard-to-grasp sui generis entity in the eyes of both its own citizens and the world at large.
A conclusion sums up the argument and provides an outlook for the future.
2. EU external relations law: A doubly peculiar field of scholarship
Starting out as a niche area within a niche area, the study of the law of the external relations of the
EU has attracted significant scholarly attention in the course of the past decades.
10
Unlike many other
fields of legal scholarship, it is peculiar in two ways. First, it is part of EU law, which has been termed
a ‘new legal order’
11
that is to be distinguished from international law. Second, it focuses on the EU as
an international actor, which has been called a ‘strange animal’,12 denoting that the EU is different from
other international organisations, yet not a state. At its outset, therefore, it was about studying the sui
generis law of a sui generis entity.
Pointing out that EU law is a case apart from international law has been a recurring topic in the
rulings of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). Launched by the seminal van Gend en Loos and
Costa v ENEL judgments, this line of case law prompted and buttressed generations of scholarship on
the ‘constitutionalisation’ of EU law.
13
This distinctiveness was neatly explained again in high-profile
cases about Brexit. In the Miller case, none other than the UK Supreme Court emphasised that the UK’s
accession to the EU (then the European Economic Community, EEC) by virtue of the 1972 European
Communities Act started ‘a dynamic process by which, without further primary legislation (and, in some
cases, even without any domestic legislation), EU law not only becomes a source of UK law, but actually
takes precedence over all domestic sources of UK law, including statutes’.
14
Later, in the Wightman case,
the CJEU summarised its case law on the special nature of EU law in the following way:
According to settled case-law of the Court, that autonomy of EU law with respect both to the law of
the Member States and to international law is justified by the essential characteristics of the European
Union and its law, relating in particular to the constitutional structure of the European Union and the
very nature of that law. EU law is characterised by the fact that it stems from an independent source
of law, namely the Treaties, by its primacy over the laws of the Member States, and by the direct
effect of a whole series of provisions which are applicable to their nationals and to the Member
States themselves. Those characteristics have given rise to a structured network of principles, rules
and mutually interdependent legal relations binding the European Union and its Member States
reciprocally as well as binding its Member States to each other . . ..15
As summed up by Barnard, the EU is ‘more than an international organization (as reflected by the
judicially recognised doctrines of supremacy, direct effect etc.) but less than a federal state (no welfare
state, insufficient resources, no army etc.)’.
16
Hence, EU external relations law is in the first place a
10
This section draws on and expands ideas from Joris Larik, ‘EU Foreign Relations Law as a Field of Scholarship’ (2017) 111
AJIL Unbound 321 <https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2017.88> accessed 27 December 2019.
11Case 26/62 van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen [1963] ECLI:EU:C:1963:1, para 10.
12Fraser Cameron, An Introduction to European Foreign Policy (Routledge 2007) 24.
13
Kaarlo Tuori, European Constitutionalism (CUP 2015); see also earlier Armin von Bogdandy and Jürgen Bast, ‘The
Constitutional Approach to EU Law’ in Armin von Bogdandy and Jürgen Bast (eds), Principles of European Constitutional Law
(2nd edn, Hart Publishing/C.H. Beck 2011); Joseph Weiler, The Constitution of Europe: Do the New Clothes Have an Emperor?
and other essays on European integration (CUP 1999); and Eric Stein, ‘Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational
Constitution’ (1981) 75 American Journal of International Law 1.
14
R (on the application of Miller and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Appellant)
[2017] UKSC 5, para 60.
15Case C-621/18 Wightman [2018] ECLI:EU:C:2018:999, para 45.
16
Catherine Barnard, ‘Introduction: The Constitutional Treaty, the Constitutional Debate and the Constitutional Process’ in
Catherine Barnard (ed), The Fundamentals of EU Law Revisited: Assessing the Impact of the Constitutional Debate (OUP 2007) 3.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 3

sub-field of scholarship of a peculiar type of law in the sense that it is largely ‘constitutionalised’ without
being a form of state law.
For the same reason, EU external relations law is about an entity that is peculiar as an international
actor. The EU has acquired extensive powers in the fields of external relations and has accordingly
become increasingly active on the international scene. To date, it has concluded more than a thousand
international agreements.
17
It is one of the most active litigants in World Trade Organization (WTO)
dispute settlement, having been either complainant or respondent in 190 cases.
18
Moreover, it is engaged
in, or has completed, more than 30 civilian and/or military operations in the framework of its Common
Security and Defence Policy.19
At the same time, this does not mean that the Member States have disappeared from the international
scene. To the contrary, the Member States remain present and active internationally; at times instead of
the EU, at other times alongside it. Both EU and Member States are restrained, and bound together, by
EU law. While the EU is limited by the principle of conferral, that is, it can only act to the extent that the
Member States have given it powers explicitly or implicitly,
20
the Member States have to respect those EU
powers and act in a spirit of ‘sincere cooperation’.
21
In that sense, not only the EU, but also its Member
States, have become ‘strange subjects’ in international law and politics.22
From a third-country perspective, the EU and its Member States must indeed appear as showing
some odd behaviour at times. For instance, Canada’s negotiators were astonished to find out that Wallonia,
one of the constituent states of Belgium, could block the signature of the Comprehensive Economic and
Trade Agreement (CETA) and hence threaten to derail the entire process.
23
At other times, the EU, not
being a state, is prevented from joining international organisations, even though it possesses the power
to act within the scope of activities of that organisation.
24
In such a situation, the Member States find
themselves bound to act as ‘trustees of the Union interest’
25
rather than in their own right. A particularly
confusing episode unfurled in early 2019 when the members of the United Nations Security Council
had to listen to a statement presented on behalf of the 27 Member States, but not Hungary, which had
voted against a common EU position on this matter. The Finnish Foreign Minister was chosen to read out
the statement since his country was going to take up the EU Council’s rotating presidency, rather than
Romania, which was the incumbent at that time.26
Why would the outside world put up with such oddness? And why would scholars spend considerable
time commenting on it, let alone try to make a living off it? Each sovereign state has its own national
legal order, each of which has a body of laws and other rules that ‘governs how that nation interacts
with the rest of the world’.
27
However, EU external relations law, which is not part of a national legal
17
Number based on European External Action Service, EU Treaties Office Database <http://ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/
AdvancedSearch.do> accessed 27 December 2019, taking into account all treaties that have entered into force for the EU.
18
Number based on WTO, Find dispute cases <https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/find_dispu_cases_e.htm>
accessed 27 December 2019. Only the US is more active with more than 270 cases as complainant or respondent.
19
European External Action Service, Military and civilian missions and operations <https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/
headquarters-homepage/430/military-and-civilian-missions-and-operations_en> accessed 27 December 2019.
20Art 5(2) Treaty on European Union (TEU).
21Art 4(3) TEU.
22
Bruno De Witte, ‘The Emergence of a European System of Public International Law: The EU and Its Member States as
Strange Subjects’ in Jan Wouters, AndréNollkaemper and Erika de Wet (eds), The Europeanisation of International Law: The
Status of International Law in the EU and Its Member States (T.M.C. Asser Press 2008) 39.
23
See ‘David vs Goliath? Small Belgium region leaves EU-Canada trade deal in crisis’ (France24, 22 October
2016) <www.france24.com/en/20161021-eu-canada-trade-deal-ceta-collapses-belgian-region-wallonia-refuses-sign> accessed
27 December 2019.
24
See Jan Wouters, Jed Odermatt and Thomas Ramopoulos, ‘The EU in the World of International Organizations: Diplomatic
Aspirations, Legal Hurdles and Political Realities’ in Stephan Keukeleire, Michael Smith and Sophie Vanhoonacker (eds),
The Diplomatic System of the European Union: Evolution, Change and Challenges (Routledge 2015).
25
Marise Cremona, ‘Member States as Trustees of the Union Interest: Participating in International Agreements on Behalf of
the European Union’ in Anthony Arnull, Catherine Barnard, Michael Dougan and Eleanor Spaventa (eds), A Constitutional
Order of States? Essays in EU Law in Honour of Alan Dashwood (Hart Publishing 2011).
26
Andrew Rettman, ‘EU ignores Hungary veto on Israel, posing wider questions’ (EUobserver, 1 May 2019)
<https://euobserver.com/foreign/144768> accessed 27 December 2019.
27Curtis A. Bradley, ‘Foreign Relations as a Field of Study’ (2017) 111 AJIL Unbound 316, 316.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 4

order, appears to be one of the most vibrant cases of scholarship of this specific topic, second only to US
foreign relations law. As argued in an earlier piece,
28
there are arguably three factors that apply together
in both the United States and EU which explain the heightened scholarly interest in this field: multilevel
governance, normative zeal, and superpower capabilities.
First, both US foreign relations and EU external relations scholarship feed on the legal complexities
and conflicts caused by the multilevel governance structures of both entities. In particular, this concerns
the need to reconcile internal diversity with unity in external representation.
29
The main difference
between the two is that the US maintains a ‘closed’
30
federal system where the country is externally
represented by the federal executive as a ‘sole organ’
31
and where the states are virtually absent from the
international stage. Federalism is a crucial principle of US constitutional law, which entails that states’
rights need to be protected from encroachment from the federal government, even when the latter is
acting in order to comply with international commitments, as prominently exemplified by the Medellín
case.
32
For the EU, the ‘openness’ of its system of external relations is the principal cause of need for
coordination given that both the EU and its Member States are prominent international actors that often
act in parallel. In addition, multilevel democratic accountability in treaty making, as shown in the example
concerning CETA’s signature, is another complicating factor. By contrast, in non-federal, unitary polities
these tensions do not exist, which results in fewer constitutional questions and less litigation on which
scholars can ponder and publish.
Second, both the US and the EU have a tradition of policies to promote their own values and models
of governance in other parts of the world. This has been called ‘American exceptionalism’ and European
‘normative power’,
33
respectively. While there are many different interpretations of the former term, it is
used here in the sense of ‘American exceptionalism [that] looked outward, professing a sense of America’s
duty to wield its growing power responsibly, bring democracy to the world and build strong, enduring
alliances and institutions that could calm potential flashpoints and end conflicts’.
34
These factors make the
two polities interesting to both scholars of international relations and legal academics. This idea has now
found explicit expression in the Treaty on European Union, which commits the EU to conduct its external
relations based on ‘the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement’.
35
Legal scholars, moreover, may be seen as particularly attracted by the fact that law is seen as both a major
driver of internal integration – the well-known ‘integration-through-law’ thesis – as well as the EU’s
‘weapon of choice’36 in its external action.
Third, both the US and the EU are entities of considerable capabilities. There is an increasing
tendency in constitutional design to include grandiose statements about foreign policy objectives,
37
even if
it is clear that many countries have only little influence in shaping global governance.
38
Both the US and
EU, however, have such capacities. The role of the US as a ‘benign hegemon’ in the wake of the Second
World War, being the main architect of the liberal world order as we know it today, is well documented,
peaking in what became known as the ‘unipolar moment’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
39
As for
the EU, if only for its considerable economic weight, it too is a force to be reckoned with. Pre-Brexit, it
28Larik (n 10) 324–5.
29Robert Schütze, Foreign Affairs and the EU Constitution: Selected Essays (CUP 2014) 175–208.
30ibid.
31
United States v Curtiss-Wright Export Corp, 299 US 304 (1936) 320; see further Louis Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the US
Constitution (2nd edn, Clarendon Press 1996) 41–5.
32JoséErnesto Medellín v Texas, 552 US 491 (2008).
33
Originally coined by Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’ (2002) 40 Journal of Common
Market Studies 235.
34
Robert R. Tomes, ‘American Exceptionalism in the Twenty-First Century’ (2014) 56 Survival 27, 38; for more inward-looking
interpretations of the term, see Harold Hongju Koh, ‘On American Exceptionalism’ (2003) 55 Stanford Law Review 1479.
35Art 21(1)(1) TEU.
36Mark Leonard, Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (Fourth Estate 2005) 36.
37Joris Larik, Foreign Policy Objectives in European Constitutional Law (OUP 2016) 68–72.
38
See, e.g., art 43 of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan, which states that ‘[f]oreign policy of the Republic of South
Sudan . . .shall be conducted independently and transparently with the view to achieving’, inter alia, the ‘promotion of dialogue
among civilizations and establishment of international order based on justice and common human destiny’.
39Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’ (1990) 70 Foreign Affairs 23.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 5

amassed a combined GDP similar to that of the US and China.
40
But also the combined defence budgets
of the EU Member States are still higher than of any individual country with the exception of the US
and China.
41
In addition to market power and military spending, another important factor is ‘soft power’.
This applies also to the fields of legal (and international relations) scholarship, where both the US and EU
can boast top universities,
42
research institutes, and funding opportunities, all of which facilitate research
and writing on foreign relations law issues as well as their worldwide dissemination.
In sum, both in the US and the EU, the combination of multilevel governance, a tradition of normative
zeal in foreign policy, and considerable hard and soft capabilities makes for fertile ground for foreign
relations law scholarship to flourish.
3. Four eras of EU external relations scholarship
The way EU external relations scholarship developed as a field of research can be roughly divided into
four eras.
43
In each, scholarship follows behind seminal case law or political milestones, in particular treaty
revisions. These four eras can be termed emergence, growth, consolidation, and a future of normalisation.
First, EU external relations law started to ‘emerge’ as a field of research as soon as it became
evident that the EU (then still the EEC) was equipped with important powers not only internally but also
with regard to its external relations. Three seminal CJEU rulings from the 1970s brought this message
home. First, in the 1971 ERTA judgment, the Court ruled that the EEC acquired implied powers to
act internationally whenever common rules had been adopted internally.
44
As a consequence, Member
States would be pre-empted from ‘affecting’ such common rules by virtue of their own international
engagements.
45
Second, four years later, in Opinion 1/75, the CJEU found that some of the EEC’s
external powers could also be exclusive from the start, not requiring the adoption of internal rules first.
The prime example of such an area of a priori exclusivity is the Common Commercial Policy (CCP).
46
Third, in 1977, the Court clarified in Opinion 1/76 that the EU has the power – though not necessarily
an exclusive power – to enter into international commitments when this is necessary for the attainment
of Union objectives, including internal objectives and situations where the internal power has not yet
been exercised.
47
These rulings can be seen as the point where legal academics started to devote serious
attention to the EEC as an international actor and to the internal rules and procedures that framed its
external relations.48
A topic that stirred up early scholarly interest is the practice of mixed agreements, that is, agreements
which are concluded between the EU and (some) of its Member States on the one hand, and one or
several third parties, on the other.
49
Such treaties marked by ‘mixity’ have become a hallmark of EU
external relations. Mixity may be required, or at least politically desirable, in cases where neither the
Union nor the Member States have the power to conclude the agreement on their own given the degree of
40
Based on data from the World Bank <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=EU- US-CN>
accessed 27 December 2019.
41Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Europe Is Still a Superpower’ (Foreign Policy, 13 April 2017) <http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/13/
europe-is-still-a-superpower/> accessed 27 December 2019.
42
According to Times Higher Education, out of 50 top universities in the field of law, 15 are based in the US and 21 are based
in the EU (of which 10 are based in the UK), ‘World University Rankings 2019 by subject: law’ (Times Higher Education,
2019) <https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2019/subject-ranking/law#!/page/0/length/50/sort_
by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats> accessed 27 December 2019.
43These were first outlined in Larik (n 10) 322–4.
44
ERTA stands for the ‘European Road Transport Agreement’, which was at issue in the case, Case 22/70 Commission v
Council (ERTA) [1971] ECLI:EU:C:1971:32.
45ibid., para 17.
46Opinion 1/75 (Local Cost Standard) [1975] ECLI:EU:C:1975:145.
47Opinion 1/76 (European laying-up fund for inland waterway vessels) [1977] ECLI:EU:C:1977:63.
48
See KR Simmonds, ‘The Evolution of the External Relations Law of the European Economic Community’ (1979) 28 ICLQ
644; and Eric Stein, ‘Towards a European Foreign Policy? The European Foreign Affairs System from the Perspective of the
United States Constitution’ in Mauro Cappelletti, Monica Seccombe and JHH Weiler (eds), Integration Through Law: Europe
and the American Federal Experience (vol. I, book 3, de Gruyter 1986).
49
David O’Keeffe and Henry G. Schermers (eds), Mixed Agreements (Kluwer 1983); Christophe Hillion and Panos Koutrakos
(eds), Mixed Agreements Revisited: The EU and Its Member States in the World (Hart Publishing 2010).
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 6

sovereignty that has been pooled and the number of (sensitive) issues for which Member States and the
Union share competences.
50
Examples of mixed agreements include the WTO agreements, the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Constitution of the Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO), and the EU’s newer generation of trade agreements, such as CETA.
Second, the period of ‘emergence’ was followed by one of ‘growth’. It was propelled in particular by
the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union and established the system of three pillars, that
is, the European Community, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and Justice and Home
Affairs, which was later renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters. The Amsterdam
and Nice Treaties followed, with each of them giving legal scholars new legal materials and conundrums
to analyse.
51
Two main strands of research can be distinguished during the period of the pillars. On the
one hand, there was a continued focus on the external relations of the European Community,
52
with a
special emphasis on the CCP. The CCP’s development was closely related to that of the internal market
and of the expanding trade agenda, especially in light of the conclusion of the Uruguay Round Agreements
and the establishment of the WTO. The CCP arguably has been the most well-studied external policy area
of the EU. Therefore, it is not surprising that the first treatises devoted to EU external relations law led off
with extensive analyses of the CCP.
53
On the other hand, research was being conducted to study the new
legal creation called the European Union. Fundamental questions needed to be addressed here first, such
as whether it was a legal person in its own right and its relationship with the Community,
54
as well as
the intergovernmental set-up of the CFSP, which stood in stark contrast to the supranational Community
model and hence raised questions as to what extent it could be considered part of the aforementioned ‘new
legal order’.55
Third, following ‘growth’, we find ourselves currently in an era of ‘consolidation’. The main events
promoting this new period were the 2008 Kadi judgment and the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into
force in 2009. The Kadi case was an obsession of both EU and international lawyers for many years.
56
This rightly so, as the CJEU had to rule on the relationship between EU (primary) law and the UN Charter,
framed by some as a global constitution.
57
The CJEU ruled that, within the EU’s legal order and regarding
the implementation of international legal commitments, not even the UN Charter could have ‘the effect
of prejudicing the constitutional principles of the [then] EC Treaty, which include the principle that all
Community acts must respect fundamental rights’.
58
In essence, the primacy of EU law not only over the
50As confirmed by the CJEU in Opinion 1/94 (WTO) [1994] ECLI:EU:C:1994:384.
51
See, e.g., Christoph Herrmann, ‘Common Commercial Policy After Nice: Sisyphus Would Have Done a Better Job’ (2002)
39 Common Market Law Review 7; and Alan Dashwood, ‘External Relations Provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty’ in David
O’Keeffe and Patrick Twomey (eds), Legal Issues of the Amsterdam Treaty (Hart Publishing 1999).
52
Iain MacLeod, Ian D. Hendry and Stephen Hyett (eds), The External Relations of the European Communities: A Manual of
Law and Practice (Clarendon Press 1996); Alan Dashwood and Christophe Hillion (eds), The General Law of E.C. External
Relations (Sweet & Maxwell 2000).
53
Piet Eeckhout, EU External Relations Law (2nd edn, OUP 2011) 11–69, of which the first edition was published in 2005;
Panos Koutrakos, EU International Relations Law (2nd edn, Hart Publishing 2015) 17–72, of which the first edition was
published in 2006.
54
Jan Klabbers, ‘Presumptive Personality: The European Union in International Law’ in Martti Koskenniemi (ed), International
Law Aspects of the European Union (Martinus Nijhoff 1998); and Marise Cremona, ‘European Union as an International Actor:
The Issues of Flexibility and Linkage’ (1998) 3 European Foreign Affairs Review 67.
55
For an overview see Jan Wouters and Hanne Cuyckens, ‘Festina Lente: CFSP from Maastricht to Lisbon and Beyond’ in
Maartje De Visser and Anne Pieter Van Der Mei (eds), The Treaty on European Union 1993–2013: Reflections from Maastricht
(Intersentia 2013); and extensively, Ramses A. Wessel, The European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy: A Legal Institutional
Perspective (Martinus Nijhoff 1999).
56
See, e.g., Sara Poli and Maria Tzanou, ‘The Kadi Rulings: A Survey of the Literature’ (2009) 28 Yearbook of European
Law 533; and Matej Avbelj, Filippo Fontanelli and Giuseppe Martinico (eds), Kadi on Trial: A Multifaceted Analysis of the Kadi
Judgment (Routledge 2014).
57
See on this debate, e.g., Julian Arato, ‘Constitutionality and Constitutionalism Beyond the State: Two Perspectives on the
Material Constitution of the United Nations’ (2012) 10 International Journal of Constitutional Law 627; Bardo Fassbender,
‘Rediscovering a Forgotten Constitution: Notes on the Place of the UN Charter in the International Legal Order’ in Jeffrey Dunoff
and Joel Trachtman (eds), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (CUP 2009).
58
Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P Kadi and Al Barakaat v Council and Commission [2008] ECLI:EU:C:2008:461.
For a critique likening the CJEU’s approach in Kadi to the US Supreme Court’s in Medellín, see Gráinne de Búrca, ‘The European
Court of Justice and the International Legal Order After Kadi’ (2010) 51 Harvard International Law Journal 1.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 7

law of its Member States, but also over international law, including the UN Charter, was now asserted.
The Lisbon Treaty brought important innovations to the EU’s system of external relations,
59
including the
creation of the ‘double-hatted’ High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
(meaning that the incumbent is both vice-president of the European Commission and chair of the Foreign
Affairs Council) and the European External Action Service.
60
Its main contribution to the consolidation
of the field can be seen in its remoulding of the EU into one single legal person and formally abolishing
the pillar structure. Overall, both the Lisbon Treaty and the Kadi judgment contributed to understanding
the EU and the law of its external relations increasingly in ‘constitutional’ terms,
61
the previous failure of
the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe notwithstanding.
There are a number of indications for the consolidation of the field of EU external relations
scholarship. These include the founding of the specialised Centre for the Law of EU External Relations
(CLEER) at the TMC Asser Institute in The Hague in 2010, the establishment of a journal dedicated to
EU external relations law,
62
and the fact that student-oriented textbooks on ‘texts, cases and materials’ on
this subject have been published since 2014.63
However, consolidation should not be equated with decreasing interest or a reduced need for
academic analysis. In particular, the CFSP’s ‘specific rules and procedures’,
64
while being part of the
overall framework of EU law, continue to be a source of scholarly attention.
65
Related to this is the
question of how to delimit the scope of the CFSP from that of other policy areas.
66
Another legal
question of unabating salience in this domain concerns ensuring the overall ‘coherence’ of EU external
action in spite of the multiplicity of different actors and procedures.67 Moreover, the domestic effects of
international law, the Union’s international responsibility, its engagement in international institutions and
dispute settlement, as well as other common topics of foreign relations law will doubtless remain on the
agenda as well.68
Fourth, we may be witnessing the entry into a new era which could best be described as the
‘normalisation’ of EU external relations law. To some extent, employing a ‘constitutional’ approach
59See Paul James Cardwell (ed), EU External Relations Law and Policy in the Post-Lisbon Era (T.M.C. Asser Press 2012).
60
Bart Van Vooren, ‘A Legal-institutional Perspective on the European External Action Service’ (2011) 48 Common Market
Law Review 475.
61
Marise Cremona and Bruno de Witte (eds), EU Foreign Relations Law: Constitutional Fundamentals (Hart Publishing
2008); and Geert De Baere, Constitutional Principles of EU External Relations (OUP 2008).
62
Europe and the World: A Law Review was launched by UCL Press in 2017. It should also be noted that the European
Foreign Affairs Review serves as a forum specifically on EU external relations since 1996, featuring articles from both law and
international relations.
63
Bart van Vooren and Ramses Wessel, EU External Relations Law: Text, Cases and Materials (CUP 2014); and
Pieter Jan Kuijper,
Jan Wouters, Frank Hoffmeister, Geert De Baere, and Thomas Ramopoulos, The Law of EU External
Relations: Cases, Materials, and Commentary on the EU as an International Legal Actor (2nd edn, OUP 2015).
See also Eleftheria Neframi, L’action extérieure de l’Union européenne: Fondements, moyens, principes (LGDJ 2010) and
Andreas von Arnault (ed),
Europäische Außenbeziehungen (Nomos 2014), which also depart from the previous practice of
starting with a detailed exposition of the CCP.
64Art 24(1)(1) TEU.
65
See, e.g., Peter van Elsuwege, ‘EU External Action After the Collapse of the Pillar Structure: In Search of a New Balance
Between Delimitation and Consistency’ (2010) 47 Common Market Law Review 987; Ramses A. Wessel, ‘Resisting Legal Facts:
Are CFSP Norms as Soft as They Seem?’ (2015) 20 European Foreign Affairs Review 12; and Graham Butler, Constitutional Law
of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy: Competence and Institutions in External Relations (Hart Publishing 2019).
66
Geert De Baere and Tina Van den Sanden, ‘Interinstitutional Gravity and Pirates of the Parliament on Stranger Tides:
The Continued Constitutional Significance of the Choice of Legal Basis in Post-Lisbon External Action’ (2016) 12 European
Constitutional Law Review 85.
67
See, e.g., S. Dennis Engbrink, ‘The European Union’s External Action: Coherence in European Union Foreign Policy
Despite Separate Legal Orders?’ (2017) 44 Legal Issues of Economic Integration 5; and Frank Hoffmeister, ‘Of Presidents, High
Representatives and European Commissioners – The External Representation of the European Union Seven Years After Lisbon’
(2017) 1 Europe and the World: A Law Review 1.
68
See, e.g., Enzo Cannizzaro, Paolo Palchetti and Ramses A. Wessel (eds), International Law as Law of the European Union
(Martinus Nijhoff 2012); and Andrés Delgado Casteleiro, The International Responsibility of the European Union: From
Competence to Normative Control (CUP 2016); Emanuel Castellarin, La participation de l’Union européenne aux institutions
économiques internationales (Pedone 2017); Ramses A. Wessel and Jed Odermatt (eds), Research Handbook on the European
Union and International Organizations (Edward Elgar 2019); and Luca Pantaleo, The Participation of the EU in International
Dispute Settlement: Lessons from EU Investment Agreements (Springer 2018).
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 8

already normalises the EU by indicating that although it is not a state, its legal order, including its external
relations law, shares many characteristics of domestic legal systems. Expanding powers of the EU, often
driven by external pressures,
69
and a receding presence of the Member States from the international
arena, combined with a loss of Member State veto powers within Union decision-making procedures, give
the EU an even closer semblance of a federal system with increasingly ‘state-like features’.
70
Deeper
integration is one important driver of normalisation, but not the only one. Another is the way the EU is
being perceived and treated by the outside world. For example, an additional driver towards normalisation
is the advent of the field of comparative foreign relations law. As noted by Curtis Bradley, a pre-eminent
US foreign relations law scholar, in the introduction to the 2019 Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign
Relations Law, ‘the European Union, as a supranational institution that in some ways resembles a nation,
also has a developed body of foreign relations law’.
71
EU external relations law, it seems, has joined
the circle of entities with foreign relations laws that are amenable to comparison. Further comparative
research is likely to contribute to making the EU’s external relations law appear even less exotic and sui
generis. Similarly, the EU is being treated not as, but akin to, a state in the diplomatic practice of other
states. An example of this is the fact that the US State Department recognises ‘the European Union’s
representation in Washington as equivalent to that of a bilateral mission in the Diplomatic Corps Order of
Precedence’.
72
As argued here, Brexit will not dent but boost normalisation further, given that it will not
only facilitate (and necessitate) closer integration, but also simplify the EU in the eyes of both scholars
and practitioners in Europe and beyond.
4. Brexit and the future of EU external relations law scholarship
The withdrawal of the UK from the EU is an unprecedented development with wide-ranging
consequences, including for the way scholars will study the legal framework that governs the EU’s
external action. Brexit has three principal, interrelated consequences in this context. First is the change
in the UK’s status from a subject to an object of EU external relations; second are changes in the EU’s
approach to external relations prompted by Brexit; third is the need for a wider reflection on the EU as an
international actor. Intuitively, one may consider this unprecedented rupture as being at odds with the
turn towards normalisation of the field posited earlier. However, it is argued here that Brexit will have
the opposite effect. Each of these consequences will be a boost to further normalisation of EU external
relations law.
4.1. The UK after Brexit: From subject to object
One of the arguments used by Brexiteers in the lead-up to the referendum was that ‘[t]he day after
we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want’.
73
However, as the Brexit
negotiations revealed the trade-offs between the different options for the UK, it was pointed out, not least
by those favouring remaining in the EU, that the UK would become a ‘rule-taker’
74
– at any rate if it
wanted to retain privileged access to the EU’s internal market. This shift from a Member State that can
play an active part in making – and blocking – EU law and steering its external action to one that is an
69Christina Eckes, EU Powers Under External Pressure (OUP 2019).
70
Allan Rosas and Lorna Armati, EU Constitutional Law: An Introduction (3rd edn, Hart Publishing 2018) 14–17. The EU
retains an ‘open’ form of foreign affairs federalism where the Member States remain present on the international scene, but this
can also be observed in certain national systems, see Schütze (n 29) 175–208.
71
Curtis Bradley, ‘What Is Foreign Relations Law?’ in Curtis Bradley (ed), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign
Relations Law (OUP 2019) 3 (footnote 1).
72
US Mission to the European Union, Immediate Change to the EU Delegation to the United States’ Protocol Status,
Press release, 4 March 2019 <https://useu.usmission.gov/immediate-change-to-the-eu-delegation-to- the-united-states-protocol-
status-2/> accessed 27 December 2019.
73
Originally a tweet from Michael Gove from April 2016, reproduced in Samantha King, ‘Michael Gove targeted with
Brexit-themed billboard’ (talkRADIO, 15 January 2019) <https://talkradio.co.uk/news/michael-gove-targeted-brexit- themed-
billboard-19011529507> accessed 27 December 2019.
74
Philip Stephens, ‘After Brexit, Britain will be a rule-taker’ (Financial Times, 7 March 2019) <https://www.ft.com/content/
67701b76-4007-11e9-9bee-efab61506f44> accessed 27 December 2019.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 9

addressee of EU external action is the most obvious and immediate consequence of how the UK will be
approached in EU external relations scholarship post Brexit.
As an EU Member State, the UK wielded a significant degree of control over the direction of the EU,
its laws, and its external action. The UK government had a seat at the European Council and the Council of
the EU. Moreover, the UK had one of the largest contingents of seats in the European Parliament, among
other things. Across all of the EU’s policy fields, the UK government had the right to vote. Admittedly,
where unanimity was not required, it could be outvoted. However, research has shown that the expansion
of qualified majority voting notwithstanding, most of the time the Council decides by consensus without
taking a formal vote.
75
It is true that where qualified majority voting was applied, according to a report
by Hix, Hagemann and Frantescu, the UK was ‘the most outvoted Member State in the EU Council’.
76
Nevertheless, according to that same report from 2016, the UK ‘has supported more than 97% of the EU
laws adopted in the last 12 years’.77
On certain sensitive questions, the Treaties retain a requirement for unanimity, giving the UK a much
larger degree of control. This applies, for instance, to the accession of new members and the conclusion of
association agreements.
78
Any Member State, including the UK, thus has the power to block the accession
of Turkey, the prospect of which was an important factor in the campaign to leave the EU,
79
or even
an association agreement such as the one with Ukraine. Even in the distinctly supranational domain of
the CCP, the Council decides by unanimity if trade agreements touch on fields that are sensitive for the
Member States. This is the case for ‘trade in cultural and audiovisual services, where these agreements
risk prejudicing the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity’
80
and for ‘trade in social, education and
health services, where these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services
and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver them’.81
In addition, the EU’s CFSP, of which the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is an
integral part, retains a more intergovernmental character, which entails even more control by Member
State governments. A characteristic element of the ‘specific rules and procedures’ pertaining to the
CFSP/CSDP is that unanimity voting in the Council is not the exception but the rule.
82
Hence, from
inside the EU, the British government always had a veto to block any particular CSDP operation, further
integration in the field of defence, or establishment of a ‘European army’, the latter being another
prominent claim of the campaign to leave.83
With Brexit, the UK has become a ‘third country’ from the point of view of the EU. The UK’s
voting rights and representation within the EU’s institutions vanished in the night between 31 January
and 1 February 2020.
84
Instead, it now finds itself outside the system of internal EU decision making, the
‘autonomy’ of which the EU strongly protects when collaborating with third countries. For example, while
the EU welcomes contributions from third countries to CSDP operations, it has stressed consistently to
third countries that this is ‘without prejudice to the decision-making autonomy of the European Union’.
85
In addition, there is the ‘autonomy of EU law’, which is jealously guarded by the CJEU from outside
(adjudicative) bodies that may be set up as part of the EU’s relations with third countries and that may
75
See Fiona Hayes-Renshaw, Wim van Aken and Helen Wallace, ‘When and Why the EU Council of Ministers Votes
Explicitly’ (2006) 44 Journal of Common Market Studies 161; and Stéphanie Novak, ‘The Silence of Ministers: Consensus and
Blame Avoidance in the Council of the European Union’ (2013) 51 Journal of Common Market Studies 1091.
76
Simon, Hix, Sara Hagemann and Doru Frantescu, Would Brexit matter? The UK’s voting record in the Council and the
European Parliament, VoteWatch Europe, Special Report (2016) 3.
77ibid.
78Art 218(8)(2) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
79
James Ker-Lindsay, ‘Turkey’s EU Accession as a Factor in the 2016 Brexit Referendum’ (2017) 19 Turkish Studies 1, 7–11.
80Art 207(4)(3)(a) TFEU.
81ibid.
82Art 24(1)(2) TEU.
83
Jonathan Lis, ‘Brexiters’ scaremongering about a European army is just another of their lies’ (Guardian,
25 January 2019
) <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/25/brexiters-european- army-myths- franco-german>
accessed 27 December 2019.
84Withdrawal Agreement, art 7(1).
85
See, e.g., Agreement between EU and Norway establishing a Framework for the Participation of Norway in the EU Crisis
Management Operations [2005] OJ L 67/8, art 1(2). This is a standard phrase included in all such framework agreements.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 10

pronounce binding interpretation of EU law. Bodies whose powers were found to be incompatible with
the autonomy of EU law by the CJEU include a planned ‘European Economic Area (EEA) Court’86 and
the European Court of Human Rights – at least under the parameters set out in the accession agreements.
87
These two faces of ‘autonomy’ will make it difficult for the UK (if it wanted to do so) to set up common
institutions with the EU that would in any way inhibit EU decision making or furnish authoritative
interpretations of EU law.
With the UK as a third country, another important consequence is that it is now on the other side of
what has become part of the external border of the EU. The UK shares a land border with EU Member
States Ireland, Spain and Cyprus. Each of these has intricate and politically sensitive legal arrangements,
which are put under pressure by Brexit. In particular concerning the effects of Brexit on the peace process
in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement and the avoidance of a hard border, a rich body of
scholarship is emerging.
88
As the aftermath of Brexit unfolds, scholars will have to grapple with the way
legal arrangements can reconcile the tension between, on the one hand, minimising the effects of Brexit
on economies, people and the peace while, on the other, protecting the EU’s external borders and the
integrity of the internal market. The impact on the latter depends on the degree to which the UK diverges
from EU regulations, for instance by agreeing to lower its food and environmental regulations as part of a
trade agreement with the US. The more divergence from the EU, the more likely the border on the island
of Ireland will become harder, and the more pressure this will put on the peace process.
These sensitive issues notwithstanding, with the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, the Union’s most
‘awkward’
89
and ‘reluctant partner’
90
has vacated the Union’s institutional framework. British demands
for rebates, opt-outs and other special privileges have been factors in complicating EU governance and
served as a continuous source of tension within the Union.
91
These have been stumbling blocks to the
EU’s normalisation also as an international actor. The UK’s recalcitrance concerns not only internal
policy fields such as the common currency and the Schengen zone – though these of course have external
dimensions as well – but also the external domain. For example, the UK has a history of opposing the
expansion of EU exclusive competences in the area of trade and of vetoing efforts to establish a permanent
headquarters for CSDP missions.
92
At the same time, it should not be forgotten that the UK has played, at
certain times, a constructive role in the process of European integration. For instance, it was a key driver
in developing the internal market and pursuing a liberal external trade policy.
93
Moreover, it played a
defining role in launching the European Security and Defence Policy (now known as the CSDP) with the
86
Opinions 1/91 (EEA) [1991] ECLI:EU:C:1991:490. The amended EEA Agreement with an EFTA Court, which would not
have jurisdiction over the EU or its Member States was deemed compatible with EU law by the CJEU, Opinion 1/92 (EEA II)
[1992] ECLI:EU:C:1992:189.
87
Opinions 2/94 (ECHR) [1996] ECLI:EU:C:1996:140 and Opinion 2/13 (ECHR II) [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2454.
See further Jed Odermatt, ‘The Principle of Autonomy: An Adolescent Disease of EU External Relations Law?’ in
Marise Cremona (ed),
Structural Principles in EU External Relations Law (Hart Publishing 2018); and Luca Pantaleo,
The Participation of the EU in International Dispute Settlement (Asser Press 2019) 43–66.
88
See, e.g., Nikos Skoutaris, ‘Territorial Differentiation in EU Law: Can Scotland and Northern Ireland Remain in the EU
and/or the Single Market?’ (2017) 19 Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 287; Michael Dougan, ‘The “Brexit”
Threat to the Northern Irish Border: Clarifying the Constitutional Framework’ in Michael Dougan (ed), The UK after Brexit:
Legal and Policy Challenges (Intersentia 2017); and Sylvia de Mars, Colin Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben Warwick,
Bordering Two Unions: Northern Ireland and Brexit (Policy Press 2018).
89Stephen George, An Awkward Partner: Britain and the European Community (3rd edn, OUP 1998).
90
Finn Laursen, Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel, ‘The Institutional Dynamics of Euro-Atlantic Integration’ in Anders
Wivel and Hans Mouritzen (eds), The Geopolitics of Euro-Atlantic Integration (Routledge 2005) 43.
91
See David Gowland, Britain and the European Union (Routledge 2017) 219–30 (on the UK’s rebate) and 133–4 (on its
opt-out from the euro); Steve Peers, EU Justice and Home Affairs Law, Volume II: EU Criminal Law, Policing, and Civil Law
(4th edn, OUP 2016) 41–2 (on the opt-out and subsequent specific opt-ins into justice and home affairs policies).
92
See, respectively, Andrew Moravcsik and Kalypso Nicolaïdis, ‘Explaining the Treaty of Amsterdam: Interests, Influence,
Institutions’ (1999) 37 Journal of Common Market Studies 59, 65; and ‘UK blocks bid for permanent EU security headquarters’
(Euractiv, 19 July 2011) <https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/uk-blocks-bid-for-permanent-eu-security-
headquarters/> accessed 27 December 2019.
93
Catherine Barnard, ‘Brexit and the EU Internal Market’ in Federico Fabbrini (ed), The Law & Politics of Brexit (OUP
2017) 201; and the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs, Forming Coalitions in the EU after Brexit: Alliances for a
European Union that Modernises and Protects (July 2018) 25.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 11

St. Malo Declaration of 1998.
94
In any event, not having to accommodate the UK and its extraordinary
position anymore opens up space and capacities for reforms of the EU.
95
By losing its most awkward
member, the EU itself has an opportunity to become less awkward, more easily understandable, and thus
more ‘normal’ both to its own citizens and to the outside world. Whether this opportunity will be used
depends on the political will within the EU. But as the next section shows, Brexit already serves as a
prompt in that regard.
4.2. Changes in the EU’s approach to external relations
That the UK is now on the outside also affects the way the EU operates in its external action. Here,
immediate and indirect effects can be distinguished. In terms of immediate effects, Brexit necessitates
certain amendments to the EU Treaties, where references to the UK need to be removed. Voting procedures
need to take into account that there is one less member in the European Council and Council and no
more British representatives in the European Parliament,
96
among other things. Seeing the UK’s past
support for, and opposition to, particular issues such as free trade and defence will change the landscape
of coalition building within the EU. Studies are already being undertaken as to the effects of Brexit in
these considerations.97
Moreover, the EU’s legal relations with the rest of the world are affected by Brexit. While the UK
is faced with replacing (‘rolling over’) hundreds of agreements that the EU concluded with external
parties,
98
there is also work to do for the EU. For instance, at the WTO, Brexit entails the splitting up of
tariff-rate quotas. Trade partners such as New Zealand have already demanded larger overall shares.
99
Furthermore, in the WTO and other organisations where there is mixed EU representation or where its
Member States act as ‘trustees’, the EU loses a vote and a voice.100
In terms of indirect effects, which are arguably even more important, Brexit can be seen to increase
the pressure on the EU to deliver at home and abroad. Already the pre-existing financial and migration
crises have contributed to a surge in Eurosceptic parties in many EU Member States.
101
The Brexit
referendum was another blow to the EU’s self-confidence. It is a historical irony that the EU’s new Global
Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy was presented to the European Council a mere five days after the
referendum in the UK. High Representative Federica Mogherini, in her foreword to the document, could
not avoid addressing this:
The purpose, even existence, of our Union is being questioned. Yet, our citizens and the world need a
strong European Union like never before. . . . The crises within and beyond our borders are affecting
94
Alistair J.K. Shepherd, ‘Blair, Brown and Brussels: The European Turn in British Defence Policy’ in David Brown (ed),
The Development of British Defence Policy: Blair, Brown and Beyond (Routledge 2010) 43.
95
See Federico Fabbrini, ‘Brexit and EU Treaty Reform: A Window of Opportunity for Constitutional Change?’ in
Federico Fabbrini (ed), The Law & Politics of Brexit (OUP 2017).
96
See, to this effect, European Council Decision (EU) 2018/937 of 28 June 2018 establishing the composition of the European
Parliament [2018] OJ L 165I/1.
97
See for the Netherlands, Advisory Council on International Affairs (n 93) in particular 24–6 on the CCP and 34–40 on
foreign policy and defence.
98
Paul McClean, ‘After Brexit: the UK will need to renegotiate at least 759 treaties’ (Financial Times, 30 May 2017)
<https://www.ft.com/content/f1435a8e-372b-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e> accessed 27 December 2019; see on the legal aspects
Ramses A. Wessel, ‘Consequences of Brexit for International Agreements Concluded by the EU and its Member States’ (2018)
55 Common Market Law Review 101. According to the Withdrawal Agreement, art 129(4), ‘during the transition period, the
United Kingdom may negotiate, sign and ratify international agreements entered into in its own capacity in the areas of exclusive
competence of the Union, provided those agreements do not enter into force or apply during the transition period, unless so
authorised by the Union’.
99
Jim Brunsden, ‘Trade partners attack EU plan for post-Brexit import quotas’ (Financial Times, 12 November 2018)
<https://www.ft.com/content/d2af748e-e690-11e8-8a85-04b8afea6ea3> accessed 27 December 2019.
100
In the case of the WTO, for instance, the EU ‘shall have a number of votes equal to the number of [its] member States
which are Members of the WTO’, art IX(1) Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (internal footnote
omitted); see also, art II(1) FAO Constitution.
101
Carmen Aguilar Garcia and Philip Whiteside, ‘European elections: Surge of support means a third of MEPs could be
populist’ (Sky News, 30 March 2019) <https://news.sky.com/story/european- elections-a-third-of-meps-could-be-populist-sky-
analysis-11671895> accessed 27 December 2019.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 12

directly our citizens’ lives. In challenging times, a strong Union is one that thinks strategically,
shares a vision and acts together. This is even more true after the British referendum.102
In this challenging environment, it can be argued that the EU needs to prove even more than before
what its added value is for the Member States. It will have to refute the criticisms launched against it
from Brexiteers and other Eurosceptics, including in the field of external economic relations. For instance,
David Davis stated that ‘trade agreements negotiated by the EU take a very long time to conclude’, that
British ‘interests are not well represented in trade negotiations’ and, hence, ‘that these trade deals are not
tailored to [the UK’s] requirements’.
103
This was also echoed by Conservative politician Rishi Sunak, who
stressed in the lead-up to the referendum that ‘the agility of independent, mid-sized nations has proven
more effective at tapping into the global economy than the sluggish, horse trading between 28 different
EU nations, each protecting their own special interests’.
104
The widely publicised example of CETA is
not helpful in efforts to refute this criticism. Negotiations for this agreement were launched in 2009 but its
conclusion has been slowed down in particular by the Wallonia crisis of late 2016, after which the EU had
to wait until April 2019 for the CJEU to confirm its compatibility with EU law.105
Looking to the future, the EU is prone to finding itself in a state of global competition with the UK, at
least in the economic sphere. Following the logic and arguments of the Brexiteers, being ‘unshackled’
106
from the moribund EU, ‘Global Britain’ is set to face a bright future, not least through the negotiation of
lucrative trade agreements around the world. However, initially limited success in ‘rolling over’ existing
agreements also puts pressure on the UK government to deliver.
107
Threats of ‘strategic competition’
108
or turning the UK into a ‘Singapore upon Thames’109 have already been made.
The EU, for its part, has redoubled its effort to make its trade policy more effective. The need to
shake off its image as a sluggish and ineffective negotiator of trade agreements can be seen as even more
acute in the context of Brexit. One way to increase the EU’s effectiveness in this area is the move away
from ‘deep and comprehensive’ trade agreements such as CETA, which are ‘mixed’ and hence require
ratification by all the Member States (and in the case of Belgium, also approval from the sub-federal
entities). Next to political incentives, this development was prompted in particular by the CJEU’s Opinion
2/15 on the EU-Singapore trade agreement, where the Court found that the agreement could not ‘be
approved by the European Union alone’ as it also covered the protection of non-direct investments, which
exceeds the EU’s exclusive competence in the area of trade.110
102
European Union, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe – A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign
and Security Policy (June 2016) 3.
103
David Davis, ‘Britain would be better off out of the EU – And here’s why’ (ConservativeHome, 4 February
2016) <https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/02/david-davis-britain-would-be-better-off-out-of-the- eu-and- heres-
why.html> accessed 27 December 2019.
104
Rishi Sunak, ‘One glance at the EU’s dismal trade policy simply destroys the economic argument for Remain’ (The Telegraph,
1 June 2016) <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/01/one-glance-at-the-eus-dismal- trade-policy-simply-destroys-the-
ec/> accessed 26 January 2020.
105Opinion 1/17 (CETA) [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2019:341.
106
Rowena Mason, ‘Britain “shackled to corpse” of EU, says Douglas Carswell’ (Telegraph, 26 October 2012)
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9636417/Britain-shackled-to-corpse- of-EU- says-Douglas- Carswell.html> accessed
27 December 2019.
107
Richard Partington, ‘Brexit: UK has rolled over just £16bn out of £117bn trade deals’ (Guardian, 13 February 2019)
<https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/13/brexit-uk-trade-deals-eu> accessed 27 December 2019; and Tom Edgington,
‘Brexit: What trade deals has the UK done so far?’ (BBC News, 18 June 2019) <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47213842>
accessed 27 December 2019.
108
Nicholas Cecil and Joe Murphy, ‘Do a deal on Brexit or risk Britain as strategic rival to EU, Hunt warns Macron’ (Evening
Standard, 5 March 2019) <https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/do-a-deal-on-brexit-or-risk- britain-as- strategic-rival-to- eu-
hunt-warns-macron-a4083041.html> accessed 27 December 2019.
109
Martin Wolf, ‘The Brexit delusion of creating “Singapore upon Thames”’ (Financial Times, 7 February 2019)
<https://www.ft.com/content/a70274ea-2ab9-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8> accessed 27 December 2019.
110
Opinion 2/15 (EU-Singapore FTA) [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:376. In that Opinion, however, there was ambiguity about
whether the agreement could have been concluded as an EU-only one by political choice in the Council. As the Court clarified in
Case C-600/14 Germany v Council (COTIF) [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:935, paras 67–8, mixity can be avoided in cases of shared
competence if the Council so decides.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 13

As first practised in the case of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Japan, the EU has
turned to ‘splitting’ the erstwhile comprehensive agreements into two separate agreements: one which can
be concluded by the EU itself and another with mixed elements such as investment. A separate, third part
of these treaty relations existed already in the form of the Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPA).
111
The boost in effectiveness is noticeable: while the negotiations on the EU-Japan investment agreement
continue and CETA still faces a long road towards full ratification, even after the CJEU gave its green
light in April 2019, the EPA with Japan entered into force on 1 February 2019.
112
Instead of appearing too
unwieldy to deliver, this serves as a tangible success story not only of EU trade policy in general, but also
as an example of what the UK will be losing out on by leaving the EU.113 According to Han Dorussen:
It is rather ironic that . . .the UK will exclude itself from agreements that in many ways reflect the
ambitions of key Brexiteers. After all, the agreements not only provide a free trade area ‘beyond
Europe’, they also provide the EU with greater ‘global influence’. The EPA and SPA are not only
closely aligned with the UK’s economic and political interests, British diplomats also played an
important role in negotiating them.114
For scholars of EU trade policy and possibly other areas, the UK’s post-EU treaty negotiations with
the rest of the world will provide ample materials to compare, contrast, and analyse with both the EU
and UK serving as moving targets. Whereas CETA was still advertised to Europe and Canada alike as
the ‘gold standard’
115
of trade agreements, the EU has moved to a different approach with the ‘split’
in the EPA with Japan and elsewhere. An important area of analysis will henceforth be the EU’s and
UK’s performance in such negotiations. For the UK in particular, it will be interesting to investigate the
trade-off between reduced market power but increased flexibility. For the EU, a trade-off to be watched
will be between the gains in effectiveness in negotiating and agreeing to trade agreements where mixity is
avoided, on the one hand, and loss of coherence, a treasured principle in EU law and scholarship,
116
as
well as the loss of democratic oversight and involvement at the Member State level, on the other.
In the meantime, internal market regulations continue to evolve, their extraterritorial effects becoming
an increasingly important field of study under the banner of the ‘Brussels effect’.
117
This strand of research
studies the phenomenon that EU regulations and standards are often followed outside the EU due to
economic rationality even when there is no strict legal obligation to do so. Questions are then raised for
the post-Brexit UK–EU relationship as well, since economic interdependence exerts its own influence on
the UK, which applies to some extent regardless of the shape of the legal framework for trade between the
two – something legal scholars should remain well aware of.
Moreover, the EU has taken further steps in the area of security and defence, thanks, at least in part,
to Brexit. Most notably, it has launched Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) – the Lisbon Treaty’s
‘sleeping beauty’
118
according to former European Commission President Juncker – and established a
111
See, e.g., Strategic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Japan,
of the other part [2018] OJ L 216/4 (in force).
112
Agreement between the European Union and Japan for an Economic Partnership [2018] OJ L 330/3 (in force). The agreement
on investment protection is still being negotiated at the time of writing.
113
Lord Bilimoria, ‘The EU-Japan trade deals shows just what we’re about to lose after Brexit’ (politics.co.uk, 14 December
2018) <https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2018/12/14/the-eu-japan-trade-deals-shows-just- what-we- re-about- to-
lose> accessed 12 February 2020.
114
Han Dorussen, ‘Why the EU-Japan trade deal matters for Brexit’ (LSE EUROPP Blog, 16 February 2019) <https://blogs.lse.
ac.uk/europpblog/2019/02/16/why-the-eu-japan-trade-deal-matters-for-brexit/> accessed 27 January 2019.
115
European Commission, Joint statement: Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA),
STATEMENT/16/446, Brussels, 29 February 2016 <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-446_en.htm>
accessed 27 December 2019.
116
Christophe Hillion, ‘Tous pour un, un pour tous! Coherence in the External Relations of the European Union’ in Marise
Cremona (ed), Developments in EU External Relations Law (OUP 2008); Marise Cremona, ‘Coherence in European Union
Foreign Relations Law’ in Panos Koutrakos (ed), European Foreign Policy: Legal and Political Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2011).
117
Anu Bradford, ‘The Brussels Effect’ (2012) 107 Northwestern University Law Review 1; see also Elaine Fahey, The Global
Reach of EU Law (Routledge 2016).
118
European Commission, European Commission welcomes first operational steps towards a European Defence Union, Press
release, 11 December 2017 <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-5205_en.htm> accessed 27 December 2019.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 14

European Defence Fund (EDF) and Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC). These initiatives
were launched with the UK still being a member but in anticipation of its departure.
119
The UK also could
have vetoed the new defence package, but it let it pass on its way out.
For scholarship on EU external relations law, these advances open up new areas of study within
the field of the CFSP/CSDP.
120
They serve to illustrate the further integration of security and defence
in the overall legal and institutional framework of the EU – a ‘semi-normalisation’ of the CFSP/CSDP
within the EU’s constitutional framework. To some extent, this can even be seen as an attempt at the
‘communitarisation’ of EU defence policy, seeing that the EDF makes use of the regular EU budget.
121
The European Commission would go even further and is officially promoting the use of more qualified
majority voting in the CFSP instead of unanimity.
122
In addition, the leaders of France and Germany, the
EU’s two most powerful countries post Brexit, are calling for ‘a real, true European army’.
123
This has to
be seen in conjunction with the continued scrutiny of the case law of the CJEU in this area, where scholars
observe an increasing integration and normalisation of the CFSP/CSDP as well.124
For the future, with the EU being both pushed into further integration, in part to make up for the
UK’s departure, and at the same time liberated to do more with one of the most reluctant members having
left (though Denmark retains its CSDP opt-out for the time being), legal scholars will have to grapple with
a major area of tension. The EU’s efforts, especially those of politicians who are ready to go further in
this area, will have to be reconciled with the fact that the EU Treaties continue to stress the special rules
and procedures of the CFSP/CSDP while Eurosceptics warn against a ‘European army’ as a sign of the
erosion of national sovereignty. At the same time, the taking shape, in one form or another, of the future
relationship between the EU and UK will also provide an area of research involving many EU external
relations law aspects. At least according to a UK government policy paper of 2017, this future relationship
should be ‘deeper than any current third country partnership’ currently entertained by the EU.125
4.3. Reflecting on the EU’s place in the world
Having to approach the UK as a third country and considering the changes to the EU’s approach to
external relations, prompt a wider reflection on the EU’s place in the world and the role of law within its
external action. Such a reflection links up to a long-standing debate on the special characteristics of the
EU as an international actor. Albeit not a state with its own military forces, it has long been argued that it
wields global influence due its ‘civilian’,
126
‘normative’
127
or ‘ethical power’
128
with law serving as the
119
The UK itself opted out of taking part in PESCO, together with Malta and Denmark, Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/2315
of 11 December 2017 establishing permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) and determining the list of participating Member
States [2017] OJ L 331/57, art 2.
120
See Steven Blockmans, ‘The EU’s Modular Approach to Defence Integration: An Inclusive, Ambitious and Legally Binding
PESCO?’ (2018) 55 Common Market Law Review 1785.
121
European Commission, EU budget for 2021–2027: Commission welcomes provisional agreement on the future
European Defence Fund, Press release, 20 February 2019 <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19- 1269_en.htm> accessed
27 December 2019.
122
European Commission, State of the Union 2018: Making the EU a stronger global actor – European Commission
proposes more efficient decision-making in Common Foreign and Security Policy, Press release, 12 September 2018
<http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5683_en.htm> accessed 27 December 2019.
123
Jennifer Rankin, ‘Merkel joins Macron in calling for a “real, true European army”’ (Guardian, 13 November 2018)
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/13/merkel-joins-macron-in-calling-for-a-real-true-european-army> accessed
27 December 2019.
124
Graham Butler, ‘Implementing a Complete System of Legal Remedies in EU Foreign Affairs Law’ (2018) 25 Columbia
Journal of European Law 637.
125
HM Government, Foreign Policy, Defence and Development: A Future Partnership Paper (September 2017) 18; see further
Benjamin Martill and Monika Sus, ‘Post-Brexit EU/UK Security Cooperation: NATO, CSDP+, or “French Connection”?’ (2018)
20 British Journal of Politics and International Relations 846.
126
François Duchêne, ‘Europe’s Role in World Peace’ in Richard Mayne (ed), Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen Europeans Look
Ahead (Fontana 1972).
127Manners (n 33).
128Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Introduction: Ethical Power Europe’ (2008) 84 International Affairs 1.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 15

EU’s ‘weapon of choice’.
129
The counter-position was that these were mere, maybe poor, substitutes for a
lack of real hard power.130
Brexit surely cannot be without consequence for this wider debate on the EU’s place in the world.
As noted previously, the UK’s withdrawal removes a particularly recalcitrant Member State and thus
contributes to ‘normalisation’, including in external policy areas such as trade and security and defence.
However, this comes at a high price as the UK’s withdrawal means a considerable diminishment of the
EU’s capacities.
Most importantly, due to the withdrawal of the UK, the EU has lost about one-sixth of its combined
GDP. This matters because the EU’s internal market, rivalled only by the US and China pre Brexit,
operates as a great force of attraction to third countries. It is the ‘carrot’ through which the EU exercises
its conditionality policies in accession, association and trade agreements, as well as in its development
and sanctions policy.
131
After Brexit, the EU’s market has been relegated to third place both in terms of
nominal and purchasing power parity after the ‘G2’
132
consisting of the US and China – still large, but
significantly dented.
In addition, the CFSP/CSDP suffers from the loss of one of Europe’s foremost global players in
terms of hard and soft power. It is losing one of the largest diplomatic networks in the world,
133
as well as
a country with nuclear weapons and a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and which is responsible
for about a quarter of all defence expenditure in the EU.134
What will this loss in economic, diplomatic and military power entail for the scholarship of
EU external relations law? In terms of normative ambition, the EU Treaties stay the same. For the
time being, the EU will continue to be mandated to ‘preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen
international security, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter’
135
and to ‘promote an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global
governance’,
136
among other things. In view of these lofty ambitions and given the importance of the UK
for the EU’s clout and capacities on the world stage, Brexit certainly widens Christopher Hill’s famous
‘capabilities–expectations gap’.
137
Whereas these expectations remain constitutionally entrenched, the
EU’s capacities have experienced a major setback. No longer being an exceptionally powerful entity, but
one among many in an increasingly multipolar world, is perhaps a form of ‘normalisation’ too.
Translated into current policy, the 2016 EU Global Strategy confirms its global outlook and scope of
action but provides three important caveats that reveal an increased sense of geopolitical realism: first, the
Global Strategy puts an emphasis on ‘Europe and its surrounding regions’;
138
second, it introduces the
notion of ‘principled pragmatism’;
139
third, it acknowledges that regional integration can take different
forms.
140
These nuances, combined with the EU’s above-mentioned efforts to streamline its trade policy
129Leonard (n 36) 36.
130
See, e.g., Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (Alfred A. Knopf 2003);
and Adrian Hyde-Price, ‘A Neurotic “Centaur”: The Limitations of the EU as a Strategic Actor’ in Kjell Engelbrekt and Jan
Hallenberg (eds), The European Union and Strategy: An Emerging Actor (Routledge 2008).
131
See, e.g., Lachlan Mckenzie and Katharina L. Meissner, ‘Human Rights Conditionality in European Union Trade
Negotiations: The Case of the EU–Singapore FTA’ (2017) 55 Journal of Common Market Studies 832; Gergana Noutcheva,
European Foreign Policy and the Challenges of Balkan Accession Conditionality, Legitimacy and Compliance (Routledge 2012).
132See Ramon Pacheco Pardo, ‘The EU and the G2: Is a G3 Possible?’ in Jing Men and Wei Shen (eds), The EU, the US and
China – Towards a New International Order? (Edward Elgar Publishing 2014) 66–7.
133
Nicole Koenig, EU External Action and Brexit: Relaunch and Reconnect, Jacques Delors Institut – Berlin, Policy Paper 178
(22 November 2016) 4–7.
134
Eurostat, ‘How much is spent on defence in the EU?’ (18 May 2019) <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-
news/-/DDN-20180518-1?inheritRedirect=true> accessed 27 December 2019.
135Art 21(2)(c) TEU.
136ibid.
137
Christopher Hill, ‘The Capability—Expectations Gap, or Conceptualising Europe’s International Role’ (1993) 31 Journal of
Common Market Studies 305.
138European Union (n 102) 18.
139ibid., 16.
140
ibid., 32: ‘We will not strive to export our model, but rather seek reciprocal inspiration from different regional experiences.’
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 16

and cooperate more in the area of security and defence, need to be understood as efforts to close this gap
by lowering expectations while boosting the EU’s ability to deliver in particular, tangible areas.
However, Brexit is not the only factor that is a threat to the EU’s standing in the world. Seeing the
fixation of politicians, the media, and scholars over the past years with the UK’s withdrawal may have
served as a distraction from other challenges. For instance, the ‘rule of law’ backsliding crisis in Poland
and Hungary is not merely an internal challenge for the EU as a legal community.
141
It also threatens
to undermine its credibility as an actor promoting the rule of law abroad, as it is mandated to do by the
Treaties. Moreover, migration and economic fragility are still on the agenda and will be used by populist
parties in casting doubt on the usefulness of the EU.
These continuing challenges and the ability to compare the UK’s performance with the EU27 post
Brexit provide fertile ground for contestation of the EU’s place in the world. It will essentially be a
debate about the added value of the EU in the contemporary world, including its ‘integration-through-law’
approach and its standing as a ‘normative power’. A scenario in which the EU will struggle to uphold
the rule of law and provide economic prosperity for its Member States and citizens, while the UK will
manage to curb migration and mitigate the economic downsides of Brexit, will seriously question the
EU’s raison d’être. It will be less appealing to its own Member States and their citizens, which may
question the need to act jointly on the international stage. Moreover, it will be less appealing and credible
to its external partners. Lastly, it will be less appealing as a model to emulate, which in turn will also
be detrimental to the process of normalisation. Therefore, a dithering EU and a (moderately) successful
‘Global Britain’ question the standing of the EU and the value of regionalism altogether for many countries
in the world, not least those led by populist strongmen appealing to nativist instincts and sovereignty
defined as closedness and unwillingness to cooperate.
5. Conclusion and looking ahead
Having as its object of study both a novel legal order and an unusual international actor, EU external
relations law has evolved into a vibrant field of scholarship in the course of the past half-century. This is
still comparatively little compared to the more than two centuries on which scholarship of US foreign
relations law can rely. Nevertheless, following its initial emergence in the 1970s and going through periods
of rapid growth and consolidation, it has turned from a niche area within a niche area to one of the most
dense and relevant case studies within the new field of comparative foreign relations law. EU external
relations law matters both to those within the EU and those around the world that are affected by it.
This is due to a combination of three characteristics it shares with the US, that is, multilevel governance,
normative zeal and considerable capacities to have a wide-ranging impact far beyond its borders.
This article argued that the next era of EU external relations scholarship will be one of normalisation.
Short of turning into a federal state anytime soon, the EU and the law of its external action will appear
decreasingly exotic and sui generis. Brexit, the article contended furthermore, has caused a significant
loss to the EU’s capacities, but at the same time will spur on the process of normalisation. First, the UK,
by having turned itself from a subject into an object of EU external action, has liberated the EU from one
of its most awkward and obstructionist Member States. By having given up its privileged position, the UK
contributes to simplifying the EU’s governance structures, while having lost its ability to block further
integration. Second, Brexit increases the pressure on the EU to refute the Brexiteers’ and Eurosceptics’
claims about its sluggishness and ineffectiveness vis-à-vis its own citizens and the rest of the world. To this
end, first steps in different policy areas have already been taken to make the EU more agile and effective.
Third, the loss of the UK and its considerable capacities and clout in the world prompt a wider reflection
on the EU’s place in the world. The EU will remain constitutionally mandated to promote the international
rule of law. However, in part to counteract the dramatic widening of the ‘capabilities–expectations gap’
due the UK’s withdrawal, a new sense of realism seems to be taking hold, perhaps abandoning the hubris
of the past for good. All these factors combined make the EU a smaller power – but one less mired in the
intricacies of placating the UK and more attuned to geopolitical realities. The rules governing its external
141
Laurent Pech and Kim Lane Scheppele, ‘Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU’ (2017) 19 Cambridge
Yearbook of European Legal Studies 3.
EU external relations law and Brexit: ‘When Pluto was a planet’ 17

relations will increasingly reflect this. And so they should, because if they do not, the EU risks being
‘plutoed’ itself in a multipolar world.
Declarations and conflict of interests
The author declares no conflicts of interest with this work.
Europe and the World: A law review 4-1 18