Dublin case stalls CETA investor courts

This October, a court in Dublin 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 that its new law ratifying CETA, the EU-Canada trade deal, still fails Ireland’s constitutional test (Irish Times). For small EU states, including Malta, the point is not academic: Brussels can negotiate a major trade agreement, but national constitutional law can keep part of it unfinished for years.

The trade side of CETA is already in force. Nearly all tariffs between the EU and Canada were removed when the agreement began to apply provisionally in September 2017 (Council of the EU, Western People). European manufacturers and agrifood exporters have gained from lower barriers and access to Canadian public contracts (Rijksoverheid). Germany’s ifo institute projected a long-term gain of 0.19% in real per-capita income, meaning income per person after inflation, from CETA (consulting.de). That is modest at national level, but the gains are already landing in particular sectors. The legal question is why the agreement is still not complete.

The investor court nobody can agree on

CETA is a "mixed agreement". Some parts fall under EU powers, while others enter areas still held by national governments (Council of the EU). That means every EU country must ratify it under its own constitutional rules before the full agreement can take legal effect. The contested part 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 where the politics hardens. The objection is not to trade with Canada, but to giving foreign corporations a legal route that domestic businesses and citizens do not have.

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

The Irish government’s answer was the Arbitration (Amendment) Act 2026. It makes compensation orders from investor tribunals enforceable in Ireland only with High Court permission, and allows the court to block enforcement if an order conflicts with Ireland’s constitutional order (William Fry). Boylan’s case argues that this still does not give Irish courts enough control. October will show whether that fix holds.

The same fight across Europe

Ireland is not the only member state holding up the agreement. 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 is consistent across very different political systems. The tariff cuts and market-opening measures draw limited resistance. The investor-rights chapter does. French farming groups fear price pressure from Canadian beef produced under different standards (Fondation Robert Schuman). German environmental organisations argue that the treaty court could be used to challenge environmental regulation (Umweltinstitut). These are feared outcomes rather than proven losses, but in national parliaments they have been strong enough to slow or block ratification.

The Dublin hearing will decide whether Ireland’s legislative repair meets the Supreme Court’s standard. If it does not, Brussels will face a larger problem than CETA: whether the EU can keep placing investor courts inside trade agreements when national constitutional systems refuse to absorb them.