Treaty Ratification, Investor State Arbitration, and Constitutional Identity: Implications of Costello v Government of Ireland [2022] IESC 44

Date: Wednesday, 10 May 2023

Time: 2 - 3pm & 3.15 - 4.30pm

Overview

In Costello v Government of Ireland, the Supreme Court held that it would be unconstitutional to ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada (CETA) on the ground that it infringed Ireland’s juridical sovereignty. However, the Court also suggested that ratification would be constitutionally permissible if the Arbitration Act 2010 were amended to allow Irish courts refuse to enforce CETA awards that infringed constitutional identity. Costello has significant implications for the future of CETA and investor-state arbitration agreements more generally. Moreover, the Court’s invocation of ‘constitutional identity’ raises questions as to whether the Court might later seek to join the transnational dialogue with the CJEU on the scope of EU law. In this seminar, we will explore the reasoning and implications of Costello first from the perspective of Irish constitutional law and then from the perspective of international economic law and EU law.

Irish Beginnings: 2pm - 3pm

Prof Maria Cahill (University College Cork)

Prof Oran Doyle (Trinity College Dublin)

Prof Gavin Barrett (University College Dublin)

Prof Laura Cahillane (University of Limerick)

Chair:Prof Aileen Kavanagh (Trinity College Dublin)

European and International Implications: 3.15pm - 4.30pm

Prof Christiane Ahlborn (Trinity College Dublin)

Prof Gavin Barrett (University College Dublin)

Prof Tobias Lock (Maynooth University)

Prof David Schneiderman (University of Toronto)

Chair: Prof Mike Becker (Trinity College Dublin)

TRiCON is supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Law and Politics, Trinity College Dublin.