Abstract This article explores the relationship between the social function of property and the abandonment of real estate, arguing that factual abandonment may amount to a form of ‘negligent non-use’ of property. Although the social function of property is both an external limitation on ownership and an affirmative social-obligation norm inherent in property itself, legal systems struggle to operationalise this or to address the negative externalities, particularly environmental harms, generated by factual abandonment. As existing regimes do not always sufficiently disincentivise harmful non-use, legal abandonment could be reconceptualised as a regulatory tool capable of promoting optimal use of unwanted resources.
Abstract This article examines the new provisions on contract interpretation and characterisation in Book 5 of the Belgian Civil Code, which entered into force on 1 January 2023. The reform preserves Belgium’s traditional subjective approach to interpretation, prioritising the parties’ common intention over literal textual meaning, contrasting with the objective or mixed approaches adopted by French law and international instruments. Regarding characterisation, Belgium introduces innovative provisions explicitly addressing contract classification and mixed contracts, filling gaps left by other legal systems. These aspects of the Belgian reform are put intto perspective with comparative observations drawn mostly from French, German, and Dutch law.
Abstract This first study of the 2023 Council of Europe (CoE) Data Protection Regulations focuses on the institutional design of the Data Protection Commissioner and the Data Protection Officer (DPO). It shows that the reform of both offices was inspired by the EU offices of the EDPS and the EU DPOs. In the context of an EU-CoE dialectical relationship in data protection, the EU exerts significant influence over institutional design. The article highlights differences between those offices and their EU counterparts. In particular, the weak enforcement/monitoring powers of the CoE Commissioner limit possibilities for accountability within the organisation. The study ends with recommendations to strengthen the Commissioner’s mandate.
Abstract The article explores the complex interface between international agreements concluded jointly by the European Union and its Member States (mixed agreements) and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. Case law remains unclear and appears fraught with inconsistencies. The article aims to mitigate the uncertainty and identify common principles, proposing a concrete approach to establishing the Court’s jurisdiction in the mixity context. It further explains the underpinnings of the Court’s highly contextual expansion of its jurisdiction. This is understood — though not uncritically—as an effort to fill gaps in judicial protection and ensure the autonomy of the EU legal order.
Abstract This article investigates selected contradictory procedural arrangements in France and Poland to establish how they can all operate under the same European rule-of-law standards. Building on the theoretical framework of procedural formalism and on the Polish and French highest administrative courts’ case law on the procedural question of whether court staff can produce certain documents and copies thereof in place of a party to court administrative proceedings, the authors portray diversified, and sometimes even contradictory, approaches to procedural formalism, which testifies to inconsistent understanding and implementation of rule-of-law standards in proceedings before administrative courts in both countries.
Abstract This article traces how the Court of Justice of the European Union has developed a doctrinal framework for EU sanctions against Russia under Regulation (EU) No 269/2014. This case law forms a coherent body of reasoning reconciling post-Soviet legacies with contemporary geopolitical imperatives and evidential rigour. By refining the meaning and temporal scope of accountability within the listing criteria, the Court defines the vocabulary guiding asset-freezing decisions and maps Russia’s interwoven networks of power, capital, and state influence. This case law reveals a gap between law and societal expectations of justice, leaving unaddressed the enduring post-Soviet privileges underpinning Putin’s regime.
Abstract Focusing on two themes—the consistency of cross-border EPPO investigations and the legitimacy of the resulting evidence—this article re-evaluates concepts set out in key documents on the EPPO’s establishment; critically analyses the implications of G. K. and Others and Gavanozov for evidence-gathering under Union law; and sets out two courses of action to address key issues. The first provides ideas for a more precise definition of EPPO investigative powers. In the absence of the necessary political will, the second sets out theoretical and practical arguments for the use of EIOs and JITs within the current legal framework.
This article illuminates the powerful role of law in shaping the EU’s political economy. I argue that the neo-liberal architecture and, ultimately, the lack of a socio-economic equilibrium ingrained in the EU legal framework and in the (case) law of the ECJ are crucial with regard to their effects on the political and (socio-)economic spheres. Solutions to this and the restoration of socio-economic balance are limited. As Treaty change seems unrealistic, I argue that the Court should develop a new (self-)understanding that replaces the ‘integration through law’ paradigm with something that could be understood as ‘integration sustained by law’.
This article focuses on the impact of the reform of the contract law section of the French Civil Code in 2016 in two key areas: remedies for breach of contract and regulation of unfair terms. In particular, it draws a contrast between the ways in which two of the most controversial provisions introduced by the reforms have been applied in practice. While new Article 1221, which limits specific enforcement where it is disproportionate, has been accepted by the courts, Article 1171, which deems unfair terms as not written, has been interpreted narrowly to the point of being marginalised.
Abstract Addressing climate change is a global priority. There is broad, science-based consensus that efficient environmental policy requires significant and rapid investments aimed at accelerating energy transition and safeguarding biodiversity. Yet, despite valuable improvements such as NextGenerationEU and the ETS, the EU and its Member States are still in search of extra financial resources. Here, we establish the FINE-for-EU mechanism to provide finance for pan-European green investment projects. We propose setting up a Pan-European Climate Fund to create a financial link between the benefits businesses derive from the cross-border legal framework and the specific responsibilities they have towards supporting climate objectives.
Abstract Democratic backsliding is becoming increasingly widespread, filtering into not just constitutional law but other areas of substantive Union law. This article explores this phenomenon by focusing on how domestic judicial reforms spread to the day-to-day operation of EU competition law. It references two fundamental principles of Union law – mutual trust and effective judicial protection – before focusing on the European Competition Network, which requires national competition authorities to cooperate when discharging their duties under Union law. Lastly, it discusses the systemic consequences this can have for the operation of EU competition law, the internal market, and EU law more broadly.
Abstract The unfettered authority of sports governing bodies (SGBs) has given rise to a distinct number of human rights claims, but it has also led to the distortion of the free movement of persons and competition law in the European Union. In the International Skating Union and European Super League Company, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) emphasized that while SBGs have a right to achieve legitimate sporting aims, such as integrity and sporting fairness, this cannot be done at the expense of competition rules. The CJEU highlighted that SGBs are not allowed to prevent their member associations from organizing and operating competitive leagues and events, nor can they inflict sanctions on them for attempting to do so. These judgments will revolutionize the transnational sports law landscape and reshape SGB institutional rules and their relationships with their members.
Several proposals to modernize obligations and contracts law in the Spanish Civil Code have not succeeded. However, Spanish contract law has evolved through judicial interpretation, which has reformulated existing rules and recognized new ones. This article deals with major transformations in general contract law and special contracts. Additionally, the Civil Code has been affected by its interaction with EU law, as interpreted by the CJEU. Updating the Civil Code in this manner has created conceptual obscurity and has increased legal uncertainty. Formal modernization of the Civil Code would be welcome, provided it treats Spanish private law as an integral part of the pluralistic legal order of the EU.
The EU has been represented as a singular ‘Digital Empire’ speaking with one voice on matters of EU digital regulation. Closer examination of discrete areas of EU digital regulation reveals a more nuanced picture suggesting clear institutional divergence between the EU institutions regarding the substantive protection afforded by EU law. A detailed analysis of EU data protection adequacy decisions brings to the surface intra-EU tensions concerning the substance of core EU fundamental rights. This analysis reveals that the EU Commission has taken on a more prominent role in adequacy decision-making since the entry into force of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation at the expense of other relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, the Commission’s decisional practice does not align fully with the stance of the Court of Justice on the right to data protection. New sites of intra-EU human rights tensions are therefore uncovered with consequences for the legitimacy of the EU as a digital regulator and the role of the Commission as a guardian of the treaties.
This article critiques the case-law of the CJEU on when Member States are ‘implementing’ EU law under Article 51 of the Charter, and tables a proposal for amending Article 51 to enhance the effectiveness of EU fundamental rights protection. It also suggests modifying and updating the explanations. Given that Member State judges have alternative routes available to them to resolve fundamental rights disputes, namely via Member State rules and the ECHR, and which do not require consideration of a complex threshold question before the pertinent substantive laws can apply, it suggests that review of Article 51 of the Charter might be timely.
Almost 10 years ago, the Ordonnance of 10 February 2016 reforming the French Civil Code (CC) removed the cause from the conditions for validity of the obligation. Thus, it broke with the tradition of the Code Napoléon , and a large number of civil codifications followed. Since 2016, French scholars have argued that, notwithstanding its conceptual implications, the disappearance of the formula of the cause has resulted in semantic rather than substantial changes. Whereas, in one opinion, the cause is still found underlying ‘contenu litice et certain’ (Article 1128), its various forms and functions today appear in several CC provisions.
This article is the first panoramic survey of the various, idiosyncratic procedures relating to the removal for cause of EU institutional officeholders scattered throughout the Union’s primary and secondary law. After describing these provisions, the article argues that these procedures may be considered as impeachment. The article then examines the character of EU impeachment, concluding that it is conceptualised narrowly as addressing individual misbehaving officers, rather than as a means to address wider, systemic, policy-based threats to the EU and its values. The article also offers some observations regarding defects in the EU’s current impeachment provisions and suggests possible reforms.
Abstract A new legal order has arisen in the United Kingdom (‘UK’) following that country's withdrawal from the European Union (‘EU’). Nowhere are these changes more evident than in the complex rules that have emerged in the fields of freedom of movement and the right to work. In evaluating the new legal landscape, this Article has two overarching aims. The first is to assess the level of protection granted to the right to work and associated free movement rights within EU and UK law, including the terms of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement. The second aim is to examine the extent to which those right to work rules are reflective of the status of the right to work as a fundamental social right. It is argued that Brexit unmoors the right to work from EU free movement rules, thereby undermining the normative value of that right, while exacerbating flaws in domestic rules governing access to employment for both national and migrant workers.
The primacy of EU law as framed by the Court of Justice pre-empts substantive arguments of principle that originate in other legal orders. This was accepted and acceptable to the extent that the values EU law contained were at least normatively equivalent to values originated from the other legal orders. In this contribution it is argued that this is no longer the case and that the misuse of the Rule of Law rhetoric justifying the primacy of EU law renders the EU less accountable and undermines the dialogical pluralist essence of EU constitutionalism.
