European Union Framework Agreement and Swiss Sovereignty

With regard to the framework agreement with the European Union, the question in debate is whether the European Court of Justice, as the sole judicial body in the dispute settlement procedure, means an unacceptable loss of sovereignty. This one-sided bias may be annoying, but it can only be categorized as a slight limitation of Switzerland’s sovereignty. With every international treaty, the contracting parties’ external sovereignty (i.e. the sole right to decide) is restricted to a certain extent: they must first abide by the law of the concluded contract, but in the event of a dispute they must also submit to the contractually stipulated court or its ruling. This also applies to private contracts. The substantive legal foundations upon which decision-making bodies are based are of critical importance to the provisions.