It is the view of the German federal govern­ment that the upcoming rati­fi­ca­tion of the free trade and invest­ment protection agree­ment between the EU and Canada is recon­cil­able with EU law.

The Court of Justice in Luxembourg has set out in a report the conditions under which the EU could be an international court. The EU Commission has directed this specifically at the Investment Court contained in CETA. According to the model proposed by the EU Commission, there would be explicit provisions regarding the impartiality of judges on the Investment Court. Therefore, it differs significantly from an arbitration court in which the impartiality of the judges is not excluded. Appointment of arbitrators by the parties could lead to a lawyer acting as an arbitrator in one proceeding and in a parallel proceeding as lawyer for an investor. However, the measures in place in CETA would eliminate this risk, particularly through the proposal of appointing judges for a certain period and the allocation of cases on a rotating basis.