Strengthening the Legal Interoperability of NATO, the EU and Member States to Enhance the Legal Resilience of Their Collective Security Arrangements
Strengthening the Legal Interoperability of NATO, the EU and Member States to Enhance the Legal Resilience of Their Collective Security Arrangements

Summary/Abstract: In the current Euro-Atlantic security landscape, law shapes security choices in ways that are often underestimated. Governments discover this when they need to react quickly and realise that the legal route to a collective decision is less clear than expected. The political shift in Washington and the renewed attention given to the Indo-Pacific only accentuate these constraints: Europe has to rely more on its own instruments, yet those instruments do not always operate together as smoothly as their formal design suggests. Analyses tend to concentrate on planning, capability development or readiness, but the legal layer often decides whether coordination happens in time or becomes entangled in procedural doubts. When states are unsure which commitment applies, hesitation expands, and the entire process slows down. The differences between NATO norms, EU treaty obligations and constitutional rules, combined with the increasingly visible use of law as a tool of strategic competition, show that lawfare is no longer a form of normative contestation but a method of influence and pressure. In this context, legal interoperability becomes essential for maintaining stability and ensuring that collective action is coherent rather than fragmented across overlapping legal orders. The argument advanced here is that, in the present environment, law should not be regarded as a purely technical instrument; it can also strengthen strategic deterrence by reducing uncertainty surrounding the activation and implementation of collective security commitments. Given the evolution of threats and how they are perceived, as well as the broader geopolitical context, it is clear that the way legal obligations relating to collective defence are interpreted and managed needs to be reconsidered. The aim of this paper is not to offer a strictly legal assessment of these obligations. Instead, it proposes an integrated approach that brings together legal and political dimensions in order to show how greater normative coherence can reinforce the legal resilience of the Euro-Atlantic system and enhance the credibility of an allied response in times of crisis.

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