Translation of "Conference on International Law and the Environment " (English → French) :

Concerning the other amendments on the rules on applicable law. Last month, negotiations on a worldwide convention on maintenance obligations were finalised successfully at the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

The EU and the United States are engaged in in-depth dialogue on international law and the combating of terrorism, the significance of which dialogue was highlighted in the statement arising out of the 2006 summit meeting between the EU and the USA: “Consistent with our common values, we will ensure that measures taken to combat terrorism comply fully with our international obligations, including human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law. We attach great importance to our ongoing in-depth dialogue on our common fight against terrorism and our respective domestic and international legal obligations”.

EUROPA - EU law and publications - EUR-Lex - EUR-Lex - 32006D0719 - EN - 2006/719/EC: Council Decision of 5 October 2006 on the accession of the Community to the Hague Conference on Private International Law - COUNCIL DECISION // (2006/719/EC) // Instrument of accession to the Hague Conference on Private International Law // Declaration of competence of the European Community specifying the matters in respect of which competence ha ...[+++]s been transferred to it by its Member States // Declaration by the Community on certain matters concerning the Hague Conference on Private International law // STATUTE OF THE HAGUE CONFERENCE ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW

Members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law are the States which have already participated in one or more Sessions of the Conference and which accept the present Statute.

This is also how Community law is supposed to have arisen and, according to the traditional approach to international law, how its validity is supposed to take precedence over national law, either by virtue of transposition by a national implementing law (in the system known as 'dualism') or, ipso iure, as higher-ranking international law (what is known as 'monism').This report starts from the assumption of qualified monism. According to the prevailing doctrine of the primacy of the international legal order, one of the norms obtained by custom and conviction constitutes the basis for the validity of the legal orders of individual States ...[+++]. The latter are subordinate to international law by virtue of the context in which they come into being. Another one of the principles obtained from the basic norm 'custom and conviction create international law' is that international treaties (in other words, non-customary sources of law) must be complied with ('pacta sunt servanda'). Under another principle of international law, the law of States, which are conceived as the primary subjects of international law, is left essentially untouched by international law and that each of those States is itself competent to regulate the validity and scope of international law within its domestic sphere of influence and that States are entitled to develop their domestic sphere of influence inwards.

From this it is possible to infer a rank for international law so created, which - within the Community - lies between primary and secondary Community law. This applies in cases in which the ECJ has established that the act of international law and Community law are compatible.