ABSTRACT
The aim of Chapter 7 is to highlight the interplay between the EU’s rule of law promotion through trade liberalization and its broader rule of law promotion activities in the previously mentioned policy contexts (Enlargement, Neighbourhood, Development). To fulfil its objective, Chapter 7 zooms in on the case of the EU justice sector support. We found that the diplomatic documents and the assistance programming in all three contexts in question have barely linked the EU’s unilateral support of justice sector reforms to the implementation of the EU value-promoting RTA. Nonetheless, we managed to distinguish an array of noteworthy “junctures” between the EU rule of law promotion through RTAs and its broader rule of law promotion activities, such as: (i) the assistance’s contribution to the fulfilment of partner countries’ umbrella and discipline-specific obligations under the RTAs concerning review and appeal; (ii) its contribution to the observance of other standards, protected through one’s right to review and appeal; (iii) the triangular links between the RTA rule of law norms, related partner countries’ institution-building obligations and individuals’ right to review and appeal and (iv) the potential application of the RTA rule of law obligations as benchmarks to promote and assess stronger specialization of the EU’s justice sector support.
