Book Review: The Cyprus Issue: The Four Freedoms in a Member State under Siege
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X1302000108 |
| Author | Alexia Solomou |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
20 MJ 1 (2013) 151
BOOK REVIEW
Nikos Skoutaris, e Cyprus Issue : e Four Freedoms in a Membe r State under Siege,
Hart Publishing , Oxford 2011, 224 p., hardback, £55, ISBN 978–1–84946 –095–8.
Alexia Solomou*
§1. IN TRODUCT ION
is book explores the interrelationship of the European Union (EU) legal order and
the Cyprus issue. It addresses the question how the EU dea ls with the de facto division
of the island. Despite the accession of Cyprus to the EU in 2004, it has not led to its
reuni cation. Ironically, even if EU law applies to the entire territory of Cyprus, it is
suspended in those areas where t he government of the Republic of Cyprus does not have
e ective control. is book at tempts to explore the application of EU law over a territory
where there are two competing cla ims of authority.
is book focu ses on the limits of the suspension of EU law in Norther n Cyprus. e
signi cance of this analysis lies upon the mastery of a complex nexus of international
law, Cypriot law, the laws of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cypr us (TRNC), EU law
and the case law of various nat ional, regional and international tribuna ls. Nevertheless,
in no case can this book be called ‘multidisciplinary’ as it does not apply any other
science onto the law; it only a nalyses a series of di erent legal orders, both domest ic and
international.1 It is thus a multi-nodal legal analysis, not a mult idisciplinary one.
§2. CONTENTS
A er a profoundly insightful foreword by Marise Cremona, the author’s thesis
supervisor at the Eu ropean University Institute, the latter se ts out the historical, politica l
and legal context of the suspension of the acquis in northern Cypru s. e book revolves
around three fundamental axes: rst, union citizenship, fundamental rights and free
* Research and Pu blications Assistant to the Di rector of the Lauterpacht Centre for I nternational Law,
Univers ity of Ca mbridge.
1 N. Skoutaris, e Cyprus Iss ue: e Four Freedom s in a Member State under Siege (Har t Publishing,
Oxford 2011), p.3.
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