Dublin lawsuit tests CETA’s investor courts

This October, a Dublin courtroom will hear a constitutional challenge to one of the EU's most important trade agreements. Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan has sued the Irish government, arguing its new legislation to ratify CETA, the trade deal between the EU and Canada, does not pass constitutional muster (Irish Times). What looks like a domestic legal dispute exposes a weak point in EU trade policy: Brussels can negotiate and launch a deal, but a single member state's constitution can keep it legally unfinished for years.

The trade part of CETA already works. Nearly all tariffs between the EU and Canada were removed when the deal started being applied provisionally in September 2017 (Council of the EU, Western People). European exporters in manufacturing and agrifood benefit from lower barriers and can bid for Canadian public contracts (Rijksoverheid). Germany's ifo institute projected a long-term gain of 0.19% in real per-capita income (income per person, adjusted for inflation) from CETA (consulting.de), a small number at the macro level but one already flowing to specific sectors. So why isn't the deal finished?

The investor court nobody can agree on

CETA is a "mixed agreement": some parts fall under powers held by Brussels, while others touch areas reserved to national governments (Council of the EU). Every EU country must ratify under its own constitutional rules before the full deal takes legal effect. The part still waiting is the Investment Court System, or ICS, a standing tribunal where a foreign investor covered by CETA could sue a government for breaching investment commitments, outside that country's ordinary courts (European Commission). That is the core of the opposition: foreign corporations would get a special legal route unavailable to domestic businesses or citizens.

In 2022, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled that the country could not ratify CETA as the law stood, because the investor-court system would leave Irish courts powerless to review tribunal decisions (Comhlámh). The same court indicated, by a 6-1 majority, that new legislation could fix the problem without amending the constitution (Irish Times).

The government responded with the Arbitration (Amendment) Act 2026. The law makes investor-tribunal compensation orders enforceable in Ireland only with High Court permission, and lets the court block enforcement if an order would conflict with Ireland's constitutional order (William Fry). Boylan's case argues that fix still does not give Irish courts enough control. October will test whether it does.

The same fight across Europe

Ireland is not alone in stalling. Belgium's Wallonia region blocked CETA in 2016; its regional parliaments only voted approval in June 2026 (PFWB). In France, the lower house passed ratification but the Senate rejected it (Vie publique). In the Netherlands, the bill cleared one chamber but was still moving through the Senate as of June 2026 (Eerste Kamer).

The pattern holds across different political systems. The tariff and market-opening parts of CETA meet little resistance. The investor-rights part does. French farming groups fear price pressure from Canadian beef produced under different standards (Fondation Robert Schuman). German environmental organisations argue the treaty court could be used to challenge environmental regulation (Umweltinstitut). These are feared outcomes, not proven losses, but they carry enough political weight to block ratification.

The Dublin hearing will decide whether Ireland's legislative fix satisfies the Supreme Court's demand. If it does not, Brussels faces a question that reaches well beyond Canada: can the EU keep writing investor courts into trade deals when national constitutions keep rejecting them?