Is the general structure of EU law a matter determined by its own constitutional principles? Many assume that this must be the case, because this is what we regularly expect from any national order of constitutional law. A more careful look shows that the analogy does not work. There is no single set of constitutional principles that determines the application of EU law by the Member States. Each State has its own principles. This clear division of labour between EU and national law poses a serious theoretical problem to those presenting EU law as a legal system directly analogous to that of a constitutional order. This chapter argues that a more careful study shows that the structure of EU law is very much like the structure of international law: dualist, not monist. Nevertheless, the dualist structure of EU law does not in any sense reduce its authority or legitimacy.

The proportionality principle plays a key role in constitutional review of public acts. Its use legitimises the constitutional claims of EU law in the context of a multi-level polity system. The application of proportionality in the EU differs based on whether legal acts of the EU or of its Member States are concerned. In the former case, a manifestly disproportionate test is usually applied, while in the latter case, a least restrictive means test (LRM) is normally used. Both are conditioned by the degree of integration achieved. In future, the use of the principle may involve increasing attention being paid to individual rights.

One of the significant changes in the landscape of international law in recent decades has been the increase in the number of international courts and other forms of international dispute settlement. The EU has pushed for the inclusion of dispute settlement chapters in its trade and investment agreements, it has joined multilateral treaties that include dispute settlement mechanisms, and it has proposed the establishment of multilateral investment court. The Court of Justice of the European Union has shown a more guarded approach in recent years towards international dispute settlement. This article explores the potential ways to address these sources of conflict and allow the CJEU to coexist with other international courts.

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 EU’s current renewable energy legislation sets a binding EU target for renewables as a share of overall energy consumption, allied with binding national targets for renewables as well. Yet the precise implications of having imposed such ‘mandatory’ binding targets have received little attention to date. This contribution examines the history and evolution of such targets, the context within which they must be pursued and applied, and some of the problems in and prospects for their enforcement and effectiveness. Comparisons are drawn with other areas of EU law where appropriate and some tentative lessons learned, as well as challenges still to be faced, are offered by way of conclusion.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is inherently political in nature. The rationalistic considerations underpinning its launch and subsequent elaboration have necessarily influenced the choice of the legal framework. At the same time, the rules regulating the conduct of EU foreign policy had a reciprocal impact on policy choices made. The legislative and political developments following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the regional split in the policy arguably injected new dynamics into the interaction between the political and legal aspects of the ENP.

The chapter traces the relationship between the political objectives and the legal framework of the ENP through three phases of its existence, with a focus on the eastern neighbourhood, comprising Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus, as the addressee of the exclusionary rationale of the policy. First, the formulation and the elaboration of the initiative is revisited as the first phase of the existence of the policy. The second phase concerns the ‘Eastern Partnership’ initiative established as a result of the regional split within the policy. The third phase refers to the law and political objectives of the ENP as translated into Article 8 TEU.

Interim measures can be indicated by most international decision-making bodies which monitor compliance with human rights norms to the parties involved in the proceedings before them, in order to prevent the commission of any irreversible actions which would either preclude the proper examination of a complaint or render the final judgment meaningless. The availability of interim measures is an essential feature of any effective judicial system, particularly where fundamental rights are at stake. They play a particularly important role in proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’). The volume of requests for an indication of interim measures received by the Court each year is substantial and increasing. This presents the Court with a number of legal and practical problems. This chapter examines the circumstances in which an indication of interim measures may be made, as well as the consequences of non-compliance with such an indication, although it is acknowledged that the incidence of non-compliance is low. With its recent case law, the Court has brought the existence of interim measures to the attention of a wider audience, which is desirable as only such an awareness will render the protection of Convention rights practical and effective rather than theoretical and illusory, a stated goal of the Court. However, such a wider awareness will in turn increase the volume of requests again, making it likely that the Court will in years to come have to make significant changes to the scope of requests for interim measures, as well as to its practices and procedures for considering such requests.

The case law of the Court of Justice of the EU concerning the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is still limited. Nonetheless, even this limited case law already offers interesting insights into analysing the potential role of the Court of Justice of the EU in the development of the CEAS, and this jurisprudence is in any event likely to grow significantly, due to the fact that the provisions of the CEAS are the result of a political compromise and so lack clarity. This chapter examines the ruling delivered by the Court in the case of Elgafaji, which contains certain elements which address the interpretative difficulties raised by Article 15(c) of the Qualification Directive, and goes on to consider, through a discussion of the recent ruling in Abdulla, the extent to which the Court’s interpretation of those provisions of the CEAS which replicate the wording of the 1951 Convention will influence the interpretation of this international instrument, and the difficulties presented in this context. The extent of this influence remains to be seen, but it is clear in any event that the Court of Justice is likely to play a major role in the development of the CEAS. One amendment which may prove necessary is the modification of the Court of Justice’s procedural rules such that it can take into account the views of third-party organisations with a special expertise in this field.

In a series of decisions the European Court of Justice [‘the Court’] has ruled that Member States must deploy their law enforcement authorities, including their criminal justice systems, so as to safeguard Community interests from threat or damage. These rulings have received attention from commentators because, amongst other things, they make it explicit that Community law has a tangible impact on matters of criminal law and justice notwithstanding the absence of a criminal legal base in the Community Treaty.

Maurice Lagrange was appointed Advocate General in 1953 and retired in 1964. He delivered over 80 Opinions in a period of 10 years, covering a wide range of issues. The first 40 or so Opinions concerned the European Coal and Steel Treaty (ECSC Treaty) exclusively, whilst the remainder covered all three Treaties.

Youssef nada is a 77-year-old man, who lives in the tiny commune of Campione in Switzerland. He is not allowed to leave this commune. Nor can he access his financial accounts, despite being a senior figure in the world of banking. The problem Mr Nada faces is that his bank, the Al Taqwa bank, is associated with the Moslem Brotherhood and that Mr Nada—an Egyptian by birth—is also connected with this organisation. Among his adversaries is the Egyptian Government of Hosni Mubarak, which desires to get him back to Cairo, where it is clear his safety could by no means be guaranteed. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, Mr Nada also incurred the enmity of the US Government. He found himself placed on a UN sanctions black-list—hence the restrictions on his movement and financial dealings.

EU management of its international responsibility for wrongful acts varies between a pragmatic approach and the proceduralisation of its responsibility. The EU either lays down complex procedures in order to manage the allocation of responsibility in order to (allegedly) preserve the internal division of competences or takes a pragmatic approach which disregards any internal division of competences. This chapter critically analyses these two trends in EU practice. More precisely, it identifies from the ongoing development in the incipient foreign direct investment policy of the EU and in its accession to the European Convention on Human Rights the problems linked to this way of managing the EU’s international responsibility. Overall, it argues that instead of complex and slow procedures or ad hoc pragmatic solutions, the EU should adhere to a rule-based approach which is at the same time pragmatic and respects the principles underpinning the proceduralisation of responsibility.

According to Article 267 TFEU, a ‘court or tribunal of a Member State’ can make a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice. The Court applies a single, homogeneous definition of a ‘court or tribunal’. This has allowed it to admit references from those specialised, independent, administrative bodies that in several Member States have been established instead of administrative courts to decide claims under public law, including EU law. Whether such a ‘dispute settling’ body is entitled to submit a preliminary reference normally depends upon whether it commands sufficient ‘independence’ vis-à-vis both the parties to the dispute and the public administration as such. The Court has tightened these requirements appreciably in connection with the threats against the independence of the judiciary in some Member States, and the consequent more prominent roles that Articles 19 TEU and 47 of the Charter have come to play. Whereas safeguarding the rule of law is of utmost importance, these provisions pursue objectives within the Union's legal order which are materially different from those pursued by Article 267. In this article, it is therefore argued that the Court should apply different constructions of the independence criterion with respect to these provisions.

The aim of this paper is to examine transparency principles under English and German Law, EU acquis and PEICL and to answer the question whether current legal regulation reflects high standards of transparency requirements and offer adequate consumer protection. The author is particularly interested in investigating are there any typical, common or shared characteristics in the regulation of transparency requirements across these jurisdictions. The focus of this paper is on consumer insurance contracts only. The main argument is that through transparency we can build consumer's trust in insurance market and offer adequate consumer protection.

Cases involving the posting of workers will inevitably involve international elements and therefore issues of private international law. Historically, it has been assumed that English employment law is territorial: in particular section 204 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that the provisions of the Act apply irrespective of the law applicable to the contract. This contribution examines this proposition through the perspective of private international law principles, and also considers the compatibility of section 204 with the private international law rules in the Posted Workers Directive and the new definition of overriding mandatory rules in the Rome I Regulation.

The impetus for this chapter is the extraordinary difficulties surrounding the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. It aims to provide a framework within which to explore trust in EU law. The question of trust has become even more significant since the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty with the emergence of the fiscal crisis in Greece and in the wider eurozone. This chapter initially seeks to locate the question of trust within the much-discussed notion of the democratic deficit in the EU, drawing on the work of Snell. It argues that the question of democratic deficit raises questions about trust in the EU, and that institutionalised distrust is what is required in order to secure appropriate trust in EU law and governance. It then examines the nature of trust before turning to two major crises of distrust in the EU: the Irish referenda on the Lisbon Treaty and the ongoing difficulties presented to the eurozone of the indebtedness of some of its members.

A purist might say that the judicial architecture of what is now the European Union was first altered by the 1957 Convention on Certain Institutions Common to the European Communities. That Convention set up a single Court of Justice with jurisdiction under the three Community Treaties which had by then been signed. However, the 1957 Convention should probably be regarded as the last brick in the original edifice, which was to remain unchanged for nearly 30 years. Although the Court started to express concern about its capacity to cope with its workload in the 1970s, the Member States did not respond until 1986, when provision for a court of first instance was made in the Single European Act. That reform marked the beginning of a period of rapid change in the judicial architecture of the Union.

In the new post-Cold War security era, there is a perception that the nature of cross-border security threats has changed. The need to respond to these new threats has led to a proliferation of multilateral international and regional treaties in this area, as well as unilateral demands made by the United States post-9/11. We have, then, seen a process of globalisation of criminal law, a field traditionally linked to State sovereignty. This chapter examines, first, EU action with regard to UN multilateral conventions and the impact of those conventions on internal EU law, as well as the impact of EU action within the framework of the regional treaties of the Council of Europe; secondly, the interrelationship between Union law and the global production of norms in criminal matters by the UN Security Council and by the Financial Action Task Force; thirdly, bilateral cooperation between the EU and the US, in particular in connection with the transfer of Passenger Name Records data; fourthly, the question of compliance by the EU in this area, in both the internal and the external context; and, fifthly, the Court of Justice’s approach to the protection of fundamental rights when global criminal law is engaged. The EU has managed to take centre stage in international developments in the field of global criminal law through a clear commitment to multilateral negotiations as well as a clear political will to implement at the Union level norms agreed internationally without a high degree of transparency. The Court of Justice has also been reluctant to overturn Union security decisions in the name of fundamental rights. The coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty will eliminate some complexity in this area, but not all, and it still remains to be seen whether in the process of globalisation of criminal law the European values proclaimed in Article 2 of the new EU Treaty will be promoted or compromised.