Mario Mendez

Why have referendums on European integration proliferated since the 1970s? How are referendums accommodated within member states' constitutional orders and with what impact on the European integration process? What is the likely institutional impact of referendums on the future of the European integration process? Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, these are just some of the fundamental questions addressed in this book. The central thesis is that the EU is faced with a 'direct democratic dilemma', which is compounded by the EU's rigid constitutional structure and a growing politicisation of the referendum device on matters related to European integration. Referendums and the European Union discusses how this dilemma has emerged to impact on the course of integration and how it can be addressed.

Why have referendums on European integration proliferated since the 1970s? How are referendums accommodated within member states' constitutional orders and with what impact on the European integration process? What is the likely institutional impact of referendums on the future of the European integration process? Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, these are just some of the fundamental questions addressed in this book. The central thesis is that the EU is faced with a 'direct democratic dilemma', which is compounded by the EU's rigid constitutional structure and a growing politicisation of the referendum device on matters related to European integration. Referendums and the European Union discusses how this dilemma has emerged to impact on the course of integration and how it can be addressed.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Comprehensively examining the legal effects of EU concluded treaties, this book provides a thorough analysis of this increasingly important and rapidly growing area of EU law. The EU has concluded more than 1000 treaties including recently its first human rights treaty (the UN Rights of Persons with Disability Convention). These agreements are regularly invoked in litigation in the Courts of the member states and before the EU courts in Luxembourg but their ramifications for the EU legal order and that of the member states remains underexplored. Through analysis of over 300 cases, the author finds evidence of a twin-track approach whereby the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) adopts a maximalist approach to Treaty enforcement where EU agreements are invoked in challenges to member state level action whilst largely insulating EU action from meaningful review vis-à-vis agreements. The book also reveals novel findings regarding the use of EU agreements in EU level litigation including: the types and which specific EU agreements (including the types of provisions) have arisen in litigation; the nature of the proceedings (preliminary rulings or direct actions) and the number of occasions in which they have been addressed in challenges to member state or EU action and the outcomes; who has been litigating (individuals, institutions, or member states) and which domestic courts have been referring questions to the CJEU. The significance of the judicial developments in this area are situated within the context of the domestic constitutional ramifications for member state legal orders thus revealing a neglected dimension in the constitutionalization debates which traditionally emphasized the ramifications of internal EU law for the domestic constitutional order without expressly accommodating the constitutional significance of this external category of EU law nor the different challenges that this poses domestically. This volume will serve as a reference point for future work in this area and will also be of assistance to EU law practitioners dealing with EU agreements.

Mario no es la v ctima paciente, la que contempla impert rrito la llegada del enemigo; no es el cobarde que se paraliza ante la oscuridad que llena el valle. El verde de los rboles lo anima, el olor de la p lvora lo despierta. No es el hombre que se acostumbra a guardar silencio ante la injusticia. Su humanidad lo delata y lo hace aparecer con un acto. Es el acto del pensamiento, es el acto del inconforme que se parapeta a la palabra como modo de salvaci n, y como acto de lujo, porque guardarse independiente lo es, y muy pocos lo consiguen.

En el texto "El legado de un mortal", Mario M ndez se pasea por un universo de temas, que van desde lo amoroso hasta lo pol tico, y los aborda con una dosis de iron a, tan necesaria y saludable siempre cuando el hombre se acerca a las cosas y a sus semejantes. M ndez no hace concesiones: se muestra crudo y rudo cuando lo requiere la circunstancia, vuela y no se arrastra cuando abraza la poes a para ciertas elevaciones. Las ilustraciones que acompa an el libro, m s que distraer, contribuyen a elongar las sugerencias y subjetividades que deben siempre abundar en todo ambiente po tico. Es ste un legado, pleno de aciertos y reflexiones, asediado de denuncias y valoraciones en pocas donde crisis de todo nivel tocan muchas puertas.