Implying rights and obligations that are not explicitly set forth in a treaty is not a technique of treaty interpretation explicitly recognized in the Vienna Convention. But the practice of treaty interpretation supplies numerous examples of interpretively implied consequences of express treaty commitments. This chapter focuses on some of the best-known examples of treaty interpretation based on necessary implications ranging from the theory of implied powers of international organizations to the doctrine of positive obligations in international human rights law. Building on philosopher Robert Brandom’s theory of inferentialism, it argues that what is presented as necessary implications in treaty interpretation are discursively articulated inferential consequences of formal commitments undertaken under the treaty.

The author examines the place of consent in treaty interpretation at the time of the marginalization of the role of the intention of the parties. Whether the characterization of international law as a legal system grounded in State consent has ever been empirically true is, as he argues, open to discussion. For him, the law of treaties, however, is commonly seen as ‘a bastion of consensualism’. This sense of confidence has, however, never sat easily with treaty interpretation. The author claims that, despite the lip service sometimes paid to the fiction of the common intention of the parties, the official doctrine of treaty interpretation rests on the primacy of the terms of the treaty.

Chapter 4 delves into the powers of the EAEU in their substance. It addresses the concept common to all international organizations – attributed competences – and the way it is articulated in the EAEU. A number of areas fall under the exclusive competence of the organization, although the range of such powers is rather limited and there is no clear typology of competences. Specific attention is devoted to the doctrine of implied powers as a manifestation of the Court’s ability to interpret the distribution of powers and due to the attempt of the Member States to curtail this option in the EAEU. Given the fragmented nature of implied powers research and necessity to situate the EAEU in this respect, this chapter provides an overview of the adoption of this doctrine in distinct legal orders and offers a classification of approaches. This allows to demonstrate that the EAEU Treaty provisions, regardless the seeming wish of the drafters, do not in effect preclude the Court from establishing a balanced approach to implied powers. Therefore, it is enabled to exercise its authority to interpret competences in this respect and enhance legal order autonomy.

European Criminal Law has developed into a complex, jagged subject matter, which at the same time has become increasingly important for everyday criminal law practice. On the one hand, this work aims to do comprehensive justice to the complexity of the matter without sacrificing readability. In order to achieve this, the book’s structure enables legal scholars and experienced practitioners to access the information relevant to them in a targeted manner and, at the same time, enables less-oriented readers to gain access to European Criminal Law. Thus, the volume both answers basic questions and offers discussion in more specialised areas. Written by experts in the field, the book offers discussions that are both of the highest academic standards and accessibly readable.

Chapter 9 is titled ‘Other Areas’. Hence, it examines the Unions competence to require Member States (‘MS’) to harmonize substantive criminal law in certain areas, in particular its competence to require MS to set out criminal law offences and penalties in ‘further areas’, besides the cross-border crimes covered by Article 83(1) TFEU and the PIF Directive. We focus on Article 83(2) TFEU and divide the chapter into four parts. The first part traces the development of the EUs competence in the further areas of substantive criminal law prior and after the Treaty of Lisbons entry into force. The second part provides an overview of further harmonized areas, with a special focus on the areas of environmental protection, market abuse and protection of the financial sector, migration and employer sanctions as well as discrimination and hate speech. The third part looks at possible future areas of harmonization, while the fourth part concludes the chapter by discussing bits and pieces of a general part of substantive criminal law found in the existing harmonization measures at the EU level.