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Professor Panos Koutrakos has been mentioned in the Opinion by Advocate General Ćapeta of the European Court of Justice in Case C 500/20 ÖBB-Infrastruktur Aktiengesellschaft v Lokomotion Gesellschaft für Schienentraktion mbH.
This case is a reference to the Court of Justice by the Supreme Court of Austria. It is about the interpretation of the 1980 Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) and the Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of Use of Infrastructure in International Rail Traffic (CUI Uniform Rules) annexed to the Convention. The dispute is about the liability of a railway infrastructure manager and whether it covers the costs incurred by a carrier as a result of having to lease locomotives to replace their existing locomotives due to damage cause to them. The Convention is an international agreement concluded by the European Union and most of its Member States (in other words, it is a mixed agreement). A central question to this case is whether the European Court of Justice has jurisdiction to interpret the relevant provisions of the Convention.
In her Opinion, delivered on 3 February 2022, Advocate General Ćapeta referred to the book co-edited by Professor Koutrakos entitled Mixed Agreements Revisited – The EU and its Member States in the World as well as his chapter in the book, entitled ‘Interpretation of Mixed Agreements’ (pp 116-137).
Professor Koutrakos has written widely on the relationship between EU and international law and is the author, amongst others, of the authoritative EU International Relations Law 2nd edition.