La natura erga omnes partes degli obblighi derivanti dalla convenzione ICSID e il rapporto con il diritto dell’Unione europea

di Stefano Saluzzo

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduzione. – 2. La sentenza della Corte Suprema del Regno Unito sul caso Micula. – 3. L’art. 351 TFUE e la sua inapplicabilità ai rapporti intra-UE. – 4. Trattati multilaterali e obblighi erga omnes partes. – 5. Obblighi erga omnes partes e art. 351 TFUE. – 6. La portata dell’art. 351 TFUE secondo la Corte Suprema del Regno Unito. – 7. L’identificazione di obblighi erga omnes partes nell’ambito della Convenzione ICSID: riconoscimento ed esecuzione dei lodi internazionali. – 8. Osservazioni conclusive.

Recent developments in the relationship between international law and EU law have raised numerous questions regarding normative clashes between the two legal orders. In the Micula v. Romania case, the UK Supreme Court was asked to rule on the conflict between EU law and international obligations deriving from the ICSID Convention. The case regarded the enforcement of an arbitral award again Romania before the UK national judge which, according to the European Commission, would be incompatible with State aid rules. In its decision, the UK Supreme Court has stated that, notwithstanding the obligations deriving from EU law, the UK was required to abide by the duty to enforce the award on the basis of the ICSID Convention. According to the Court, international obligations of Member States pre-dating accession to the EU should prevail over EU law when they are owed not simply to other EU Member States, but to the entirety of States parties to a multilateral treaty (including third countries). In other terms, EU law should not take precedence over erga omnes partes obligations. The present articles aims at analyzing such conclusions from the perspective of both international and EU law. It examines the debate regarding the inapplicability of art. 351 TFEU (the so called subordination clause) to intra-EU obligations in light of the CJEU case-law, in order to understand the extent to which this construction might be upheld when the international obligations at stake are of a collective nature. In the final part, the article attempts to identify the consequences of the UK Supreme Court’s decision for future disputes on conflicts between EU law and international collective obligations.