This article considers the recent rejection of challenges to the
ratification of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA),
by both the German Constitutional Court in March 2022, the Irish High Court and
the Irish Supreme Court decision in November 2022, and the likely future path
towards ratification. It considers the background to these court challenges,
including the request from the Kingdom of Belgium to the Court of Justice of
the EU (CJEU) on the compatibility of the ISDS provisions of CETA with EU law,
the underlying themes in the German and Irish court challenges, and the
position on ratification across other countries in the EU. It concludes that
the path to ratification is unclear and that the EU may be forced in the future
to adopt a split model to any Free Trade Agreement with Canada.