On 27th August, 2025, the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, in partnership with the FGV Centre for Global Law, was honored to welcome Dr. Jed Odermatt, Reader in Law at City St. George’s, University of London. The class was part of the third edition of the Rio School on Global Governance, Democracy and Human Rights.

Dr. Odermatt analyzed the interplay between international law and the European Union (EU) legal order. The main case study was the EU and investor-state dispute settlement, mainly in light of the CJEU’s case law of Achmea and Komstroy. The class focused on the legal, political and practical implications of the Court’s findings, which held that intra-EU bilateral investment treaties are incompatible with EU law. There is a conflict between how the EU views itself and how it interacts with external actors, in terms of what the organization is under the international legal order.

The lecture examined the consequences of the EU’s protection of its “autonomy”, a concept whose precise meaning remains subject to debate. While the CJEU has developed avenues to co-exist with other international courts and tribunals, it has not shown the same willingness towards investor-state dispute settlement. Instead, it uses strong language of “primacy” and “autonomy” to object to alternate jurisdictions applying EU law. Dr. Odermatt concluded that coexistence with such mechanisms will require the EU to engage with public international law arguments, not only claims to primacy.

We warmly thank Dr. Odermatt for an enriching session on this thought-provoking subject.