International Law Aspects of the EU's Security and Defence Policy

Special Mention from the Jury of the Ciardi Prize 2012

This book combines an insight into the legal aspects of operations conducted as part of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) of the EU with an analysis of the status and obligations of international organizations under international law and applies the findings thereof to the law of armed conflict and human rights in relation to ESDP operations.

Part I describes and analyses the ESDP, including all 22 military and civilian crisis management operations launched up to 31 August 2009 as well as developments under the Lisbon Treaty, and briefly discusses the international law issues raised, offering a unique insight into ESDP practice and its legal aspects. Part II examines this practice in the framework of the status and obligations of international organizations under international law: it looks at the legal status and personality of international organizations and of the EU as well as at how international organizations, including the EU, are bound by international obligations. Part III extensively addresses the international law applicable to the conduct of ESDP operations, in particular the law of armed conflict and international human rights law, filling a gap in the literature.


From the jury report of the Ciardi Prize 2012
‘Frederik Naert’s book is a monumental piece of research on all relevant international law aspects of ESDP missions. The book’s comprehensive treatment of the subject is of great practical and scientific value. Its essentially inductive approach identifies the most pertinent international legal issues that contemporary ESDP operations may face, but the analysis goes well beyond the application to ESDP operations of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law. It also convincingly includes an analysis of the EU external powers within the current international legal framework, thus creating the theoretical basis for its worldwide acceptance as an independent and autonomous international actor on the global stage.’

‘The study offers a wide-ranging, in-depth assessment of the principle problems and raises interesting questions to be taken into account prior to and during deployment for certain kinds of missions.’
Gloria Fernandez Arribas in NILR (2010) 507.

‘[…] a cogently argued and meticulously researched monograph that relies on a truly impressive range of primary and secondary sources. This, together with its accessible structure, makes the book particularly useful as a work that one not only reads, but repeatedly consults for advice.’
Aurel Sari in (2011) 36 E.L. Rev. 451.

‘[a] valuable attempt to shed light on the general issue of ESDP operations and international law from various perspectives so that the reader obtains a rather complete and comprehensive picture of the legal problems involved.’
Gerhard Hafner in Austrian Review of International and European Law (15) 2010, 513.



About the author
Dr. Frederik Naert is a member of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, a senior affiliated researcher at the Institute for International Law of the KU Leuven and editor-in-chief of the Military Law and the Law of War Review/Revue de droit militaire et de droit de la guerre. He was previously a legal advisor at the Belgian Defence Staff and a research and teaching assistant at the KU Leuven.