Abstract
“The EU Member States may be divided into those whose legal order is monist and those whose legal order is dualist.” In monist States, once an international agreement has been agreed to, its entering into force in the international legal order entails its entering into force in the national legal order.In dualist States however, this entering into force at the national level requires a specific legal instrument. In the concrete, the instrument may reproduce the exact content of the international agreement or explicitly requires the observance of the agreement's provisions.
In his thesis on the effects of WTO's agreements in EU's and Member States' legal orders, Frédéric Schmied insists on distinguishing between the theoretical and the practical approaches to monism and dualism. The theoretical approach relates to the interaction between international and national legal orders while the practical one is concerned with the way national legal orders apply international rules. So theoretically, monism involves “the absence of separation between the [legal] orders which results in the automatic inflow of external norms into internal order.” Conversely, dualism requires the “mediation” of an internal constitutional or statutory provision.
