European Law Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

2025, HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)

Revue de l'OFCE / Debates and policies -134 (2014)

2025, Sciences Po publications

L'Europe est en crise et des doutes se font jour sur la capacite de l'Union europeenne (UE) a y faire face. Cette crise et ces doutes ont de nombreux points communs. Ils sont profonds, multidimensionnels et sans doute durables. Pour les comprendre et proposer, modestement, quelques solutions, il est necessaire d'emprunter une demarche d'ensemble integrant les trois principales facettes de l'UE : un marche fonde sur l'echange et la solidarite, un ensemble de normes de droit adossees a un systeme de protection juridictionnelle et un espace politique en construction caracterise par la tension entre un centre fragile et de solides systemes nationaux.

2025, International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences

Only a world without state boundaries could be a just world. It is difficult to defend the view that state boundaries set the limits of distributive justice because it is difficult to say why differences in citizenship should count as... more

2025

1 Based on the latest Eurostat data, which shows the number of prisoners for 2016. Eurostat does not show the number of prisoners in Belgium and Scotland for 2016 (yet). See Eurostat, Prison capacity and number of persons held (crim_pris_cap), last updated on 10 January 2019, available at . 2 The ECtHR provides a summary of its most relevant case-law on detention conditions on its website. See European Court of Human Rights, Press Unit, Factsheet -Detention conditions and treatment of prisoners, January 2019, www.echr.coe.int/Documents/FS_Detention_conditions_ENG.pdf. 3 Annual reports and reports of visits to states parties are available online, at .

2025, Crime, Law and Social Change

A brief survey of the existing literature and official data related to crime, punishment and detention demonstrates that Italy is not immune to the global trend towards a tightening of systems of incarceration [1, 2]. Our analysis of the Italian incarceration rate over the long term shows that the prison population consistently decreased following the Second World War 1 : from 143 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population in 1948 to 43 in 1966 (its lowest level ever). In the second half of the 1970s, the prison population started growing again, and the incarceration rate had already risen to 70 by 1985. But a major re-incarceration process began to take place at the beginning of the 1990s, reaching a maximum level of 115 in 2010. It is only very recently that the incarceration rate has declined slightly, thanks to deflationary measures that were adopted by the Italian government under pressure from a pilot judgment procedure by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). As a result of these new measures, the incarceration rate decreased from 105 in 2013 to 86 in 2015. But the dynamic was unfortunately short-lived. The most recent data show that the incarceration rate is on the rise once again: from 86 in 2015 to 90 in 2016. The case of Italy is interesting because the increase and decrease of the prison population does not seem to have been directly related to penal policies [1]. In fact, Crime Law Soc Change

2025, European Journal of International Law

Rereading Grotius in 2019 as a sequel to the 1990 and 2009 European Journal of International Law's contributions on 'the politics of international law', at a time of staggering global inequality, Martti Koskenniemi asks what we can learn from Grotius about the 'tendency [of humans] to subordinate themselves' to law and, I may add, the limits of that tendency. While I agree with Koskenniemi that Grotius' 'rule-of-law' conception may help us understand the current backlash against the international rule of law, I suggest an alternative reading of this conception that may assist us even more. Grotius' understanding of humans and of the importance of corrective and distributive justice as components of the international rule of law helps us see the cry 'take back control' as 'indignation' about the (social) injustices and global inequality that international institutions (re)produce and as a cry for just international institutions. Koskenniemi's Foreword rightly asks: what is 'required of us'? I suggest that we should understand the current backlash as an institutional crisis as well as a crisis of selfhood. Reading Grotius may encourage us to include critical language of distributive justice in our 'bricolage' to address 'legitimate popular grievance' about the international rule of law and address the human desire for just institutions also at the international level.

2025, Simposio: "La libertad como cooperación social" de Ezequiel Spector. Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía Política

Abstract This article offers a critical examination of the theory of liberty as social cooperation (LCS) proposed by Ezequiel Spector. It begins by acknowledging the value of the work in reintroducing into the heart of political... more

2025, Eastern Journal of European Studies

Turkey's accession process to the European Union has been a prolonged journey. The objective of this article is to scrutinize the role of the European Union in extending this process. A thorough analysis of the relations between Turkey and the EU from the 1960s to the present demonstrates a notable discrepancy between the EU's official rhetoric and its tangible actions concerning Turkey's membership. In official statements, the EU has consistently underscored Turkey's Europeanness and its suitability for membership. However, an examination of the EU's attitude reveals a stark contrast to these declarations, suggesting that the EU's commitment to Turkey's membership is superficial at best. It is frequently asserted by the EU that Turkey suffers from significant shortcomings in meeting the economic, political, and institutional criteria required for membership, which are often cited as key obstacles to accession. However, even during periods when Turkey has made genuine and determined efforts to address these deficiencies, the EU's stance has largely been characterized by institutional inertia and lack of genuine engagement. Moreover, the constructive approach extended to other candidate countries has conspicuously not been applied to Turkey. Similarly, since the 1990s, reluctance toward Turkey's accession has been openly articulated by certain EU officials. Through a qualitative and diachronic analysis of key events and official statements, this study aims to illustrate all these points with concrete examples and to argue that the primary impediment to Turkey's EU membership lies not in the country's shortcomings, but rather in the EU's principled and persistent opposition to Turkish accession.

2025

Un principio base del pensiero nonviolento è che, di fronte allo stallo militare, per giungere alla pace si debbano cercare dei compromessi che non siano umilianti per le parti in causa nel conflitto. Detta altrimenti, che permettano sia all'Ucraina che alla Russia una via d'uscita onorevole. La priorità, del resto, è porre fine all'inutile strage. In un tempo in cui ci fanno credere che le armi debbano avere l'ultima parola, crediamo ancora nella ragione e nella diplomazia.

2025, International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice

Rights for crime victims have been decried as myths; entitlements that have little enforceability. At the same time, they have been criticised as undermining the legal rights of the accused person. In this Guest Editors Introduction to the Special Issue, Making Rights Real, we suggest that victims’ rights are in transition. Rights may be set out in legal instrument but, we argue, it is through the practices of people in their myriad settings that are part of that shift to realising rights in action. We describe ways in which we see victims’ rights being realised in different parts of the world and develop a human rights framework for the rights of crime victims to further shape the transition.

2025, Revista de Direito Internacional

dossiê temátiCo: direito internaCional eConômiCo e a Crise sanitaria do CoVid-19 (international eConomiC law and the CoVid-19 sanitary Crisis) .

2025, Revista De Derecho Comunitario Europeo

cia de contradicción entre la Directiva y el derecho interno. B.2) La aplicación del efecto directo de las Directivas.

2025, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - A Commentary

Freedom to provide services in the field of transport shall be governed by the provisions of the Title relating to transport. [3][4][5][6] 2. The liberalisation of banking and insurance services connected with movements of capital shall... more

2025

Il processo di integrazione europea ha rappresentato una delle principiali
cause di sommovimento del sistema interno delle fonti del diritto.
Simile processo non può però essere considerato un fattore meramente
esterno, una pressione esogena che comprime l’ordinamento sino a sconvolgerne i rapporti istituzionali e, di conseguenza, le modalità di produzione del diritto disciplinate dalla Costituzione. L’integrazione europea
ha contribuito invece a disegnare un nuovo ordine costituzionale delle
fonti, che conosce, nel suo gradino più alto, una composita costellazione
di fonti superprimarie. Pur appartenendo formalmente a sistemi giuridici
distinti, queste concorrono a comporre un blocco integrato di costituzionalità
gerarchicamente sovraordinato rispetto al restante materiale normativo.
Tale blocco di costituzionalità emerge nell’ordinamento interno grazie
ad alcune clausole europee e alla legge di esecuzione dei trattati istitutivi,
ma non esaurisce in quest’ambito le sue funzioni.
Esso opera anche sul piano sovranazionale, legittimando e orientando
il processo di produzione normativa nell’ordinamento europeo. In effetti,
le fonti originarie della UE sono andate incontro, negli anni, a una evidente
evoluzione, sia con riferimento ai loro contenuti specifici sia per
l’incorporazione della Carta dei diritti fondamentali, oggi equiparata ai
trattati. Tale evoluzione, unita a una dinamica istituzionale che, in un
processo circolare di influenza reciproca, ha valorizzato principi e obiettivi
riconosciuti dal Trattato di Lisbona e desumibili dalle tradizioni costituzioni
comuni, ha portato all’emersione di una variegata cuspide normativa
in grado, per un verso, di delineare un parametro di validità delle
norme prodotte dall’Unione europea, e, per altro verso, di offrire un fondamento di legittimazione al processo di integrazione.
Questa costellazione restituisce, sul versante delle fonti del diritto, la
dinamica attuale del federalizing process europeo, riassumibile nella formula
della European society, spazio istituzionale ove convivono, attraverso
dialoghi e conflitti, i demoi nazionali e la società civile europea, le
istituzioni sovranazionali e gli organi costituzionali degli Stati membri.
In altri termini, la sovraordinazione di alcune disposizioni contenute inatti fondamentali pone le premesse per la formazione di un blocco normativo
su cui edificare un ordinamento integrato, una sorta di Gesamtstaat
non perfettamente coincidente né con l’ordinamento sovranazionale né
con il sistema giuridico dello Stato membro.

2025, Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta, Novi Sad

The paper addresses solutions of the recently adopted Digital Content Directive (abbreviated: DCD) with the focus on its major novelty being the possibility of a consumer to provide his personal data in lieu of a price in return for a digital content or a digital service. Though this social phenomenon has been known in practice for quite some time, the DCD is the first instrument of the European Union (abbreviated: EU) that accepted such reality by laying down a legal framework tailor-made to such contractual performance. Prior to its adoption, the main concern was how to reconcile two aspects of personal data: the fact that the right to the protection of personal data presents a fundamental human right, on one hand, and a rising use of such data as an object of contractual performance in the digital environment, on the other hand. The need to conciliate these two dimensions of personal data led to some revisions of the European Commission's Proposal of the DCD. These changes led, inter alia, to a clear reference in the DCD to the already existing regime for the protection of personal data at the EU level epitomised in the General Data Protection Regulation * This paper was presented at the International Scientific Conference Legal Tradition and New Legal Challenges, held on October 3 rd and 4 th , 2019, at the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Law. (abbreviated: GDPR). Apart from relevant solutions of the DCD, the paper also examines arguments favouring the DCD implementation in Serbian legal system, proposing at the same time the most appropriate piece of legislation for that.

2025, European Law Journal

2025

Removal of Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), and Pb(II) ions from wastewater from municipal sewage treatment plants was investigated. Adsorption and ion exchange methods are most commonly used for removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater. Bentonite and palygorskite from a large number of sorbents are specially interesting because of their physicochemical properties. Sorption process of the above mentioned ions was investigated with SEM and TEM methods.

2025

The relationship between the European jurisdiction regime and arbitration is one of the areas generating confusion and disputes. The Brussels I Regulation clearly excludes arbitration from its scope to avoid conflicts with the New York Convention, but arbitration-related issues, such as the validity of arbitration agreements, either as an independent claim or an incidental question, frequently arise in courts. The scope of the Brussels I Regulation in terms of arbitration has been addressed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in a number of decisions, such as Marc Rich v Societa Italiano Impianti, Van Uden, and Front Comor. None of them have provided a satisfactory answer. In order to provide clarification and to reconcile the European jurisdiction Regulation and the New York Convention, the Brussels I Recast has inserted a new recital specifically addressing the relationship between court jurisdiction and arbitration. This article aims to assess the effect of the new reci...

2025, European integration studies

In these days, lending in foreign currencies is one of the most complex economic and social problems, which arises several legal questions not only in those Member States of the European Union, where such contractual constructions have been applied, but in relation to the judicial practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter CJEU). The study was inspired by the CJEU’s new judgement, which was recently published, in September 2017. This judgement facilitates to examine some problematic questions in detail, with reference to the interpretation of Directive 93/13/EEC and with regard to the specialities of the Hungarian regulatory environment. Notwithstanding the fact, that both the Hungarian legislator and the bodies applying law intended to close the debates on the lending in foreign currencies, statistics show the opposite. Between 1 November 2013 and 31 December 2016, more than 36,000 cases were submitted to the different courts from all over Hungary. About 19...

2025, Revista de Estudios Políticos

The organic law on amnesty is being challenged before the Court of Justice of the European Union by means of several preliminary rulings. Although EU law lacks general legislative power on amnesty, some EU norms impose limits on the role of the Spanish legislature. It is necessary to determine whether the Court of Luxembourg has jurisdiction to examine the conformity of a national amnesty law with European Union law and, if so, under what standard of review. Specifically, two main grounds for challenge that have been the subject of discussion in academic and judicial circles will be examined: the infringement of the principle of the rule of law and the breach of the financial interests of the European Union.

2025

This article analyzes the recent innovations introduced in Brazil by the Environmental Criminal Act n. 9.605/98 in the light of the principle of legality. Replying some scholars that argues it violates the “principle of legality” because it fails to adequately describe the proscribed conduct or provide for due process of law, the author argues that the Brazilian Environmental Crimes Act introduce in our legal system a consensual criminal justice, with real results in the enforcement of environmental law. Connected with the Act n. 9.099/99, which mitigate procedural principles as obligation and unavailability of prosecution and introduce new institutions such as criminal liability of legal entities, probation, plea bargain, relaxing the rules of substantive and procedural guarantees for the application of alternative sentences by a Special Criminal Courts, this new statute allowing a rapid response to protect the environmental interests.

2025, European State Aid Law Quarterly

One of the many and still unresolved questions raised by the discussions surrounding Brexit is that of its implications on State aid rules. The consequences for the UK and for both the EU and the European Economic Area are still unknown. The options are diverse and still open to much speculation. In this article, we will focus on the EEA model. Because it is not that well-known, the scope of the EEA agreement and the way it functions will firstly be presented. Indeed, some specificities of the EEA framework, amongst which the principle of homogeneity, deserve explanations as a cornerstone for the application of State aid rules within the EU and the EEA. Finally, the actual different options regarding State aid control post-Brexit within the UK, EU and EEA will be discussed. To conclude, attention will be devoted to the concerns regarding the continuation of the EEA Agreement as it stands and the future homogeneous application of State aid rules.

2025

Член 1, ал. 2, още в първата си част дефинира ясно ранга на всички водещи институции в страната -"Цялата държавна власт произтича от народа." постулира щото народът е най-висшата инстанция в държавата, а всички останали: Народно Събрание, Президентство, всякакви там Висши Магистрати и пр. се нареждат под него, точка! Оттук произтича следствие, за което не ни трябва да ходим до ал. 3: Никоя от тези по-низши инстанции не може да си присвоява прерогатива (i) да контролира процеса на провеждане на плебисцит; (ii) да въвежда "поправки" (несанкционирани от народа промени) в Конституцията; (iii) да сключва без одобрение чрез референдум (от най-висшата инстанция) на международни договори, които противоречат на постулираното в Конституцията относно суверенитета и управлението/администрирането на страната, точка!

2025

Il saggio analizza il principio dell’autonomia progressiva quale espressione paradigmatica del processo di costituzionalizzazione del diritto dell’infanzia e dell’adolescenza. Superato il dogma dell’incapacità legale assoluta del minore, si afferma una nozione relativa di capacità, espressione del processo di graduale maturazione della persona, della quale occorre accertare, nel singolo caso concreto, l’effettiva idoneità ad assumere una scelta conforme al proprio interesse. L’autonomia progressiva emerge, in questa prospettiva, come diritto fondamentale della persona in età evolutiva, riconosciuto da fonti internazionali e sovranazionali vincolanti, che comporta obblighi sia negativi (non interferenza) che positivi (promozione attiva) a carico degli Stati. Rilevata la centralità del rispetto dell’autonomia progressiva nell’ambito del dialogo ermeneutico tra Corti europee e latinoamericane, l’Autore mette in luce come tale principio si coniughi in modo complementare con la clausola del “miglior interesse del minore”, richiedendo una procedimentalizzazione delle decisioni che coinvolgano bambini, bambine e adolescenti, sì da proporre una riformulazione dogmatica della responsabilità genitoriale quale ufficio di diritto privato

2025, European Journal of International Law

Observers of the UN tend to fall into one of two camps when examining its role in the peaceful settlement of disputes. The first sees a glass more than half full, with far greater potential for the Organization if only its member States would utilize the processes contemplated in the Charter. This group tends to be institutionalist or functionalist in its political philosophy, positing the United Nations as an independent actor in global politics, one that can influence and settle disputes and thereby contribute to international peace. Chapter VI offers the non-forcible means to this end; lack of coercive measures does not diminish the UN's effectiveness. In the other camp lie the sceptics of Chapter VI, and often of the UN as an institution. Seeing a glass nearly empty, they judge the UN a failure as an actor to end conflicts and any notion of collective security a farce. Typically realist in their political approach, the sceptics argue that the UN can reflect only the individual preferences of member States. Other than perhaps as a forum for negotiation, the Organization itself can exert little successful effort to further international peace and security. Naturally, each camp has its empirical data. The optimists typically cite two categories of UN accomplishments -a history of UN diplomatic interventions that have defused tensions in certain situations; and the results of some UN peacekeeping operations. 1 The former typically consists of a litany of missions by the Secretary-General or his Special Representatives that aim to demonstrate how his manoeuvring avoided bloodshed and led to an eventual settlement.

2025, Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto

Muovendo dal libro di Giuseppe Vettori, Effettività fra legge e diritto, il
saggio affronta alcuni profili problematici legati al principio di effettività
della tutela come strumento di attuazione dei diritti. In particolare, si
richiama l’attenzione sulla giustificazione delle decisioni giudiziali quale
strada necessaria per il controllo dell’operato degli interpreti e per porsi
la certezza del diritto quale obiettivo a cui tendere nel contesto dello Stato
costituzionale.

2025, CONSTITUCION Y ELECCIONES

La exposición se estructura en seis apartados. En el primero expondré la relevancia de la Administración electoral, como administración especial de apoyo al cuerpo electoral concebido como órgano constitucional (II); en el segundo, abordaré la necesidad de adaptar el Derecho Constitucional al nuevo mundo digital (III) para en el tercero referirme expresamente al cambio producido en las estructuras de la comunicación (IV); en el cuarto me ceñiré a la descripción de las dos grandes amenazas que se ciernen sobre los procesos electorales: difusión masiva de desinformación y microsegmentación electoral a partir de datos (V). Con esas premisas pondré de manifiesto las insuficiencias de la LOREG para hacerles frente (VI) y la necesidad de fortalecer la Administración electoral para ello, en colaboración con los nuevos supervisores -previstos en la legislación de la Unión Europea- de los servicios digitales (7).

2025, Revista d'Estudis Autonòmics i Federals

La REAF no s'identifica necessàriament amb el contingut dels articles ni se'n responsabilitza. En la web del IEA está disponible la versión en castellano de los artículos publicados en catalán en este número.

2025, Матеріали ІІІ Міжнародної науково-практичної конференції

Фокус уваги вкотре спрямований на легалізацію евтаназії, адже це питання нерідко перебуває на порядку денному держав, зокрема України. У Концепції оновлення Цивільного кодексу України (2020) (далі — Концепція) у розділі 2 «Особисті немайнові права» закріплено можливість легалізації евтаназії та асистованого самогубства. Пропонується переглянути питання щодо можливості легалізації пасивної евтаназії та асистованого самогубства з урахуванням практики ЄСПЛ з паралельним внесенням відповідних змін до Кримінального кодексу України (§ 2.9.)

2025, Food and Foodways

This paper examines the contested evolution of the concepts of natural and artificial wine in Spain with a focus in a period of profound socioeconomic transformation between 1850 and 1900. It explores how wine adulteration, initially understood in economic and geographical terms, evolved into a public health and regulatory concern as industrial winemaking expanded. The study highlights the governmentality tensions that emerged between traditional viticulturists, who advocated for natural wine as an authentic product of the land, and industrial producers, who promoted large-scale artificial wine manufacturing supported by free trade policies. By analyzing oenological treatises, legal debates, and public discourse, the paper demonstrates how struggles over wine authenticity were deeply intertwined with broader conflicts over national identity, economic protectionism, and scientific expertise. Ultimately, this research situates the historical regulation of wine within a biopolitical framework, revealing how state interventions in food production sought to manage both economic interests and the symbolic integrity of Spanish wine.

2025

"If you take chances, if you vote in Jokers, crack weak men, worse charlatans with some gift of the gap, you run a very serious risk of losing everything."-Lee Kuan Yew, 1998 Long before Australia saw four sitting prime ministers... more

2025, European Journal of International Law

2025, Hadrien Herrault, Anne-Cécile Douillet, Carolina Gutierrez Ruiz, Martine Legris et Julien Talpin (dir.), Lutter ensemble contre les inégalités?

La dimension systémique des discriminations ethno-raciales a été mise au jour par de nombreux travaux portant sur l’attribution des logements sociaux3. Ces travaux soulignent les contradictions des normes entourant le processus d’attribution (première partie) et la coresponsabilité des institutions impliquées dans la chaîne de décisions pouvant aboutir à des traitements inégalitaires fondés sur des critères illégaux (deuxième partie). Analyser le caractère systémique des discriminations conduit a s’intéresser aussi a l’offre, c’est-à-dire à la production des logements sociaux en amont de leur attribution, tout comme aux mécanismes de sélection des locataires dans le parc privé, lequel interagit fortement avec le parc social (troisième partie). Face au caractère protéiforme des discriminations dans le logement, force est de constater l’ineffectivité des outils mis en place pour les combattre (quatrième partie).

2025

The ABC of European Union law takes account of the modifications made tothe European Treaties by the Treaty of Lisbon. Unless there is a direct citation, or the historical context demands, the articles cited refer exclusively to the consolidated versions of the European Treaties (Official Journal of the European Union C 83 of 30 March 2010). The information given in this edition is correct as at March 2010.

2025, European yearbook of minority issues

2025, Atti delle giornate di studio della Scuola DPCE e della Fondazione Giambattista Vico

This article argues that the challenges facing contemporary democracies are not related to (un)stable forms of government or electoral representation, but to the incompatibility of the current Western political organization with the challenges of modernity. This is because legal thinking is often hostage to the absence of an alternative, transitioning between hegemonic models of governance that have culminated in a low-intensity democracy format. This article uses examples from Brazil and Italy to conceptualize forms of government, and from other countries such as Hungary and the United States to discuss how democratic backsliding is underpinned by the inability of Western models of democracy to process the contradictions and challenges of the current historical moment. The inclusion of new non-hegemonic institutional elements has the potential to increase the organizational resilience of the state. It is necessary to recognize institutional failures and think of alternatives that allow us to respond to collective problems outside the hegemonic model. Legal thought, therefore, should propose new perspectives compatible with the needs and transformations that states and democratic societies are experiencing.

2025

On 9 December, several arrests were made in Brussels as a result of a joint operation by Belgian, Italian and Greek police, including, among others, the then Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, who remains in pre-trial detention at the time of writing this paper. The investigation is ongoing and the case involves alleged offences of membership of a criminal organisation, money laundering and corruption in relation to the network that allegedly received large payments from Qatar and Morocco for both political and lucrative benefits in the EU. Some voices were then raised calling for a Europol with European FBI-style powers but is this possible under the EU Treaties? Are Europol’s present powers sufficient to fight against serious transnational and organised crime? This paper seeks to answer these questions.

2025, Refugee Survey Quarterly

The role of emotion in asylum processes is one that has gained attention in recent years. This article situates itself as a response to this emerging body of literature by shedding new light on how emotions shaped the asylum appeals of a group of former unaccompanied minors in England through the application of the new concept of "empathy gap." Five socio-legal themes are used to structure the analysis: (i) age disputes, (ii) credibility, (iii) affective ties, (iv) right to voice, and (v) precarious legal status. It is the first article to explore in depth what happens during the asylum appeals process for former unaccompanied minors in Britain and the first to consider how questions of emotion affect their lived experiences of, and the process of, legal proceedings. The article has wider implications for how social processes and relations and informal processes, in particular emotions, influence formal legal proceedings leading to potential for unfair outcomes. The article finds that, to avoid empathy-enhanced reasoning becoming yet another variable leading to inconsistency in the judicial process, systematic training and monitoring are required. These findings carry implications far beyond the immediate context of UK asylum tribunals by offering empirically informed insights for theory and practice regarding the role of emotion in judicial proceedings, and therefore have enduring relevance.

2025, West European Politics

Unable to point to a popular mandate, unelected institutions must find another source of legitimacy. This article argues that, in the context of European integration, a solution was long sought in the notion of farsighted rule. Independent institutions such as the European Commission, Court of Justice and European Central Bank consolidated their authority with claims that they were distinctively well-placed to pursue long-term goals, being insulated from the short-termism to which national democracies are supposedly prone. Having traced the emergence and the logic of these claims, the article examines the preconditions they rest on, and the extent to which these still hold. As we argue, in today's context of volatility and emergency governance, these temporal claims look increasingly outdated, thereby disrupting one key rationale for the EU's division of powers.

2025, Slovak yearbook of European Union law

Foreign direct investment falls under the scope of the common commercial policy, a competence exclusively defined for the Union by the Lisbon Treaty. Bilateral investment treaties are also encompassed within the realm of foreign direct investment. Within the context of the European Union, this area is also important from the perspective of completing the EU's internal market. EU Member States have been, and continue to be, parties to numerous bilateral investment treaties. The present article aims to delineate the effects of the Lisbon Treaty on bilateral investment treaties, both intra-and extra-EU, and to present the status quo of this area under analysis within the European Union. A partial objective is also to scrutinize the potential impact on practice and assurances afforded to investors within the Union.

2025, European Law Journal

This paper discusses the Fedon case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which involved a claim for compensation by Fedon (an Italian producer of eye glass cases) from the EU for the imposition of WTO-authorized retaliatory trade barriers by the United States following the failure by the EU to comply with an adverse ruling by the WTO regarding its import-regime for bananas. As a result of the EU non-compliance, European banana distributors and some bananas producers benefitted from WTO-illegal protection, at the expense of a set of EU exporters, including Fedon, that were hit by US countermeasures. By not complying with its international (WTO) obligations, the EU redistributed income across producers in different sectors as well as between suppliers and consumers of bananas. Fedon contested the non-compliance by the EU before the ECJ and sought compensation. This paper assesses the ECJ ruling against Fedon and argues that the ECJ got it wrong, both in terms of legal principle and as a matter of legal technicalities. An alternative approach is proposed that would better balance individual rights to property against the 'general' EU interest whether or not to comply with adverse WTO rulings.

2025, Teoría y Realidad Constitucional

A few weeks before finalizing this article the final texts of both the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (the so-called AI Act) and the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law became known. Both regulatory initiatives are the outcome of a process of legislative, institutional, social, technological and economic debate that dates back several years and that is based on the conviction, as stated in the European Commission’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence, that artificial intelligence «will change our lives by improving healthcare (e.g. making diagnosis more precise, enabling better prevention of diseases), increasing the efficiency of farming, contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, improving the efficiency of production systems through predictive maintenance, increasing the security of Europeans, and in many other ways that we can only begin to imagine. At the same time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) entails a number of potential risks, such as opaque decision-making, gender-based or other kinds of discrimination, intrusion in our private lives or being used for criminal purposes». In the following pages we will analyse the legal responses that have been given in Europe to the challenge of regulating AI in a manner that is not apocalyptic but not completely integrated either: how these rules define artificial intelligence, which principles underpin them, the choice for a risk-based regulatory approach, the structural differences between the EU Regulation and the Council of Europe Framework Convention, the treatment of general-purpose AI models, as well as the possible ‘Brussels effect’ and ‘Strasburg effect’ these rules may trigger.

2025, Revista de las Cortes Generales

This paper aims at analyzing the origin and development of the European proposal for an 'Artificial Intelligence Act', i.e. the European Union's project to adopt a set of harmonised rules for the development, market introduction and use of AI systems in a way that is compatible with human dignity and individual autonomy, human rights and fundamental freedoms, the functioning of democracy and respect for the rule of law. At the time this paper is being written (20 November 2023) the legislative process has not been completed. Nonetheless, it is interesting to learn about its development, the significant and quick technological changes it has had to cope with and the impact that the proposal it is already having on the European Union and abroad.

2025

Emissions trading markets have been touted as the most efficient mechanism to achieve environmental goals at least cost. Whether in the form of voluntary markets or in a mandatory framework like in the first phase of the European Union (EU) Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), the regulator sets a cap on the emissions which can occur without penalty, and provides emissions allowances accordingly. The recipients are free to use these emission certificates to cover their emissions, or to sell them to the firms which are expected to emit more than what they can cover with their original allocations. As observed in most existing programs, cap-and-trade systems can fail to reach their emission targets as too generous an allocation of pollution permits serves as a disincentive for emissions reductions and deflates pollution prices. Moreover, the implementation of the first phase of the EU-ETS has been widely criticized on one more sensitive account: providing significant (some went as far as calling them obscene) windfall profits for power producers. Here we weight on this debate with the results of a rigorous quantitative modeling undertaking, providing insight into what went wrong in the first phase of the EU-ETS, and proposing alternative reduction schemes with provable advantages. Using market equilibrium models and numerical tools, we demonstrate that properly designed marketbased pollution reduction mechanisms can reach pre-assigned emissions targets at low reduction cost and windfall profits, while being flexible enough to promote clean technologies. In the present article, we illustrate our claims with the results of a hypothetical cap-andtrade scheme for the Japanese electricity market. environmental finance | emission markets | cap-and-trade scheme

2025, Revista De Estudios Politicos

Por RAMÓN PUNSET 1. A finales de 1998, justo al cumplirse el vigésimo aniversario de nuestra actual Constitución, aparecieron publicados los Estudios de Derecho Constitucional del profesor Manuel Aragón Reyes (1). El libro no es una mera recopilación de trabajos dispersos, a la que sólo su yuxtaposición otorgara una aparente unidad. Todos ellos, como el autor declara en una Introducción significativa y deliberadamente titulada Constitución y Derecho Constitucional, abordan «aspectos centrales del Derecho Constitucional», de modo que la obra ofrece, en su conjunto, «un tratamiento sistemático de lo que podría llamarse las bases constitucionales de nuestro Estado». Sistematicidad que se evidencia ya en las tres grandes rúbricas que estructuran la extensa compilación: 1) estudios sobre la elaboración y contenido de la Constitución; 2) estudios sobre su eficacia jurídica; 3) y estudios sobre la organización constitucional del Estado.

2025

L’autorimessione – tecnica con cui la Corte costituzionale promuove questioni di fronte a sè – è uno strumento decisionale sì eccezionale, ma che attraversa tutta la giurisprudenza costituzionale, dagli esordi fino ai giorni nostri. Ha conosciuto un andamento oscillante, e recentemente è emersa una chiarissima crescente pressione affinché la Corte faccia uso di questo strumento. Questo studio offre una finora inedita ricostruzione della prassi, collocandola nel più ampio quadro della ricerca di nuove vie di accesso alla giustizia costituzionale. Vengono esplorati i terreni sui quali lo strumento potrebbe trovare ulteriore espansione, segnalando rischi e insidie che potrebbero derivare da un uso troppo disinvolto di tale tecnica. Infine, vengono avanzate alcune proposte affinché questo eccezionale potere possa restare coerente con la posizione della Corte nel sistema costituzionale.

2025, European Journal of International Law

In Ruti Teitel's view there is absolutely no doubt that we live in a world in which legal relationships are undergoing ever more significant change, a fact of which she informs the reader right at the beginning of her book. States alone are no longer the main actors; instead persons and peoples are assuming greater prominence. Their interests and needs for protection increasingly dictate the content of international law which is becoming humanity's law as a result. It is very possible that those who pride themselves on adopting a perspective informed by realpolitik would refute this view with a dismissive gesture and refer with a benign smile to China's and Russia's latest veto against a resolution of the UN Security Council that was intended finally to bring an end to the killing in Syria. Two large and powerful states stressed the traditional understanding of sovereignty with the associated ban on intervention in the internal affairs of another state, leaving no room for the vital needs of the people who become the abused object of this sovereignty. However, even these international law realists must acknowledge that the veto by China and Russia triggered a global storm of indignation and, moreover, not solely on the part of international civil society but also among the majority of states, including the members of the Arab League. For all of them, the protection of the Syrian population against murderous state despotism is and was more important than respect for Syrian sovereignty which, in this case, is truly blind to the reality of the situation. This alone supports the emergence of a humanity law as perceived by Ruti Teitel. If we consider the many other examples she describes and analyses in her book, we can only agree with her wholeheartedly. A humanity law is currently emerging, in which a paradigm change is evident that is a shift away from law primarily as a model for the resolution of conflict between states and towards law as an instrument that recognizes the respect for fundamental human and group rights as the main condition of its validity. Needless to say, Ruti Teitel is fully aware that this development is difficult and frequently threatened by setbacks. However, she also knows -and conveys this information to the reader convincingly in nine extensively annotated chapters -that a large number of stages in this direction have been achieved, which are irreversible, despite the resistance of numerous states. The book begins with a brief outline of the material to be discussed on the following 300 or so pages (Chapter 1). We encounter key terms like international humanitarian law, international criminal law, the law of human rights, the responsibility to protect, civil society actors (NGOs), whose existence or actions are paradigmatic for a change, in which the 'arguments, doctrines, and interpretations shift with great speed from one side to another, and from one level of political or social ordering to another' (at 14). In the subsequent chapters, we read how everything is now in flux and how this can be understood through the application of an interpretative framework offered by humanity law, and cemented in argumentative terms through its further development. In Chapter 2 we learn about the different phases in the establishment of humanitarian protection, and how its universalization has unfolded since 1945. The author then turns her attention to the scope of this process (Chapter 3). She shows how humanity became a legally significant term and how, as a logical consequence, the individual increasingly became the focus of international law. In Teitel's view, this is demonstrated particularly clearly by the norms of international criminal law and the eventual achievement of establishing an International Criminal Court. Individuals have now become the subject of international law, and, moreover,

2025, European Journal of International Law

2025, HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.