This chapter considers the legal foundations for the EU institutions to act in the context of the Lisbon and EU2020 Strategies, including the EES (the Luxembourg European Employment Strategy). It begins by examining the formal structure provided by the Treaties for these processes and the legal basis for the resulting measures, focusing on the social strand of the three strategies. The chapter then examines the documents resulting from these strategies to see whether a legal basis is specified and, if so, what. These data are used to conclude that, outside the context of the EES, there is a remarkable absence of any express legal basis for particular EU institutions to act. Nevertheless, the European Council has assumed a pre-eminent role, pushing forward these strategies even in the absence of express competence to do so. The legitimacy of this mode of decision-making is then considered, particularly in the light of the changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.

The prevailing view on the rationale for State aid control is that it should be the same as, or very similar to, the rationale for competition control. It is certainly true that State aid distorts competition, as the economic definition presupposes. However, there is a subtle difference between the two, and we should return to orthodoxy in our analysis of these two concepts. The rational for State aid control is in fact to be found in the logic of the internal market principles. The tools to be used in analysing it are not identical to those used in the antitrust context. Rather, the free movement perspective should be adopted, and most problems in the arena of State aid can be better understood when approached from that perspective. It is also true that State aid procedures can be used to monitor compliance with free movement rules, and so the functional identity between the two sets of provisions is confirmed. State aid is a regulatory restriction on freedom of movement, and State aid control is an essential part of the functioning of the internal market, and so it makes sense to treat it in the same way as any other regulatory measure which has such an effect.

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.

The question of exactly who benefits from the Treaties, in the sense of which range of persons and bodies should be recognised as legally competent to enforce any given provision of Union law before the national courts, is surprisingly murky. This lack of clarity is due partly to the inherent complexity of the question, as well as to the complication posed by the interdependent relationship between the Union and national legal orders. The confusing approach adopted by the Court of Justice compounds the matter. This chapter discusses some observations on why this is a question which poses particular policy challenges for the Union legal order, before going on to summarise the relevant tools employed by the Court of Justice when addressing issues about the decentralised enforcement of Union law by private and public actors. It is argued that, despite the apparent confusion, it is possible to construct a workable division of labour between the role of Union law in defining its own protective scope (on the one hand) and the discretion of each Member State over access to the courts for the enforcement of Union law (on the other hand). A detailed analysis of the case law is conducted in order to identity the weakest links in the system, or at least those which suffer from the greatest degree of doctrinal and conceptual neglect. The question of who exactly benefits from the Treaties, in the sense of enjoying rights of standing to enforce Union law before the national courts, presents both surprisingly difficult challenges and promising research issues for the future.

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 Posted Workers Directive was controversial from the outset, and the recent case law from the Court of Justice has made it even more so. In this chapter, the backdrop, genesis, drafting and adoption of the Posted Workers Directive are first considered in turn in order to place it in its context. The Court of Justice’s case law is then considered and contrasted with this background and elaboration of the Directive as it was adopted. The present situation under the Posted Workers Directives is also compared with public international law norms, ILO Conventions and the European Social Charter, and the impact of the Directive in Scandinavia is considered. It is concluded that the case law of the Court of Justice is problematic because of the fact that a normative framework results from its decisions which impinges upon fundamental features of collective labour law and industrial relations: it both entails restrictions on the kinds of terms and conditions of employment which can be imposed, and encroaches upon freedom of collective bargaining more broadly. The autonomy of Member States is also limited and the effectiveness of national industrial relations regimes compromised, which is a highly undesirable outcome.

The orthodox view of antitrust, or competition, law is that it should be interpreted and enforced purely to maximise economic efficiency. This chapter argues that it is by no means so clear that the maximization of efficiency should be the sole aim of competition law, either as a matter of common-law tradition or as a matter of ‘original’ legislative intent. Moreover, such a narrow approach neglects the important social and political components and consequences of antitrust policy and adjudication. This chapter further argues that antitrust law exhibits a striking resemblance, in many ways, to constitutional law, in particular to the extent that it constitutes a social and political response, administered by courts, to three particularly problematic applications of power—the ‘exclusion, invasion and abuse’ of the title. The first section of the chapter introduces these themes. In the second section, the exclusion-invasion-abuse model is described and the implications of each broad type of rule are explored. In the third section, the historical development of modern antitrust law is traced in order to show that the ‘pure efficiency’ standard lacks any credible historical claim to particular authority or authenticity. The fourth and final section, a brief survey of competing normative accounts of antitrust law offers in order to demonstrate the extent to which a myopic focus on efficiency can occlude the underlying policy consequences of antitrust law and policy-making.

This chapter focuses on the extent to which public health has been relied upon by the EU legislature or by Member States of the European Union to limit the freedom of commercial operators to promote their goods and services. First, it discusses why courts in the United States and in Europe have ruled that the freedom of commercial operators to advertise their goods and services should be protected, in light of the fundamental role advertising plays in a liberal market economy. It shows that freedom of commercial expression has been made conditional upon the disclosure of sufficient and reliable information to consumers, thus reflecting a model of consumer protection based on the well-informed and reasonably circumspect consumer. Secondly, it addresses the more controversial question of the extent to which public health may be invoked as an overriding requirement of public interest to curtail the right of commercial operators to promote their goods and services. The approach of the Court of Justice is compared with that taken by the US Supreme Court. This comparative approach highlights the differences between the two: the former is very reluctant to exercise its review powers, while the latter has made it excessively difficult for public authorities to impose any meaningful advertising restrictions. It is argued that neither court has been able to strike a suitable balance between, one the one hand, the need to review the validity of restrictions imposed by public authorities on commercial speech to ensure a high level of public health protection and, one the other hand, the need to ensure that courts do not substitute their assessment to that of the legislature in exercising their judicial review powers. A more balanced approach is required to ensure the adequate protection of consumer health.

The emergence of private party liability in damages is EU law has been much discussed by academics, but it is clear from the case law of the Court of Justice that we do not yet have a principle of private party liability analogous to the principle of Member State liability. This chapter examines under what conditions it would be justified to claim that there was indeed a general principle of private party liability in EU law. Furthermore, the chapter explains that the introduction of the general principle of private party liability would require a thorough clarification of some of the most fundamental, yet still unclear, concepts of EU law, such as direct effect, the horizontal applicability of EU norms and the principle of effective judicial protection. It is argued that the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to introduce a general regime of private party liability in damages is not without controversy and that the judicial creation of the principle will be legitimate only if adequate normative justification is provided for its presence in EU law. In this respect, it has to be recognised that EU competition law is not an adequate legal setting for the general regime to be born, because it does not bring to light tensions arising in other contexts.

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.

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.

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.

The legal system of the European Union generates particular problems of opacity and lack of clarity. This chapter seeks to identify some of the causes of those problems. First, the nature of the texts with which the Court of Justice deals—’Union legislation’, orders for references from national courts and submissions to the Court—is examined. Problems here include the multi-lingual and multi-cultural backgrounds of those involved in the process, vagueness in legislative drafting and lack of clarity in references and submissions placed before the Court. Secondly, the Court’s own judgments and the opinions of its Advocates General are considered. Problems here include the factors governing the drafting of a single consensus judgment and the fact that it is not always easy to strike the correct balance between speed and quality. Lastly, a number of suggestions for change are offered. The obstacles are not insuperable and improvements can be made.

While investor–State arbitration is to a large extent detached from the EU legal order, EU law has recently started to be invoked in investor-State arbitration proceedings. In the context of intra-EU bilateral investment treaties, the Commission has expressed the view that investor-State arbitration gives rise to a number of ‘arbitration risks’ for the EU legal order. Not only can it solicit investors to engage in forum-shopping, but it can also result in questions of EU law not being litigated in Member State or Union courts. This chapter explores the extent to which the compatibility of investor–State arbitration with the EU legal order is in issue. It examines the main features of investor-State arbitration as concerns its interplay with the EU legal order, as well as the Court of Justice’s case law on issues of compatibility between systems of international dispute settlement and the EU legal order. The chapter highlights that the way in which investor–State arbitral tribunals handle issues of EU law, as well as the involvement of interested parties, may foster the synergy between investor–State arbitration and the EU legal order.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Kadi is of defining constitutional importance. The Court understood the EU Treaties (at the time, the EC Treaty) as establishing their own constitutional space, asserted the autonomy of EU law vis-à-vis international law and held that responses to emergencies should be handled through, rather than outside, the bounds of the EU Treaties. The judgment is predicated on liberal democratic ideals and views respect for legality as a sine qua non in times of emergency. This chapter seeks to discuss selected case law developments after Kadi. It focuses on the effect of invalidity of sanctions on third parties, issues pertaining to the validity and interpretation of Council Regulation 881/2002/EC, economic sanctions against nuclear proliferation and corresponding developments in the case law of the UK Supreme Court. It does not deal exhaustively with post-Kadi case law. Section I provides a brief introduction to the judgment in Kadi. Section II explores the effect of the ruling on third parties. Section III discusses a selection of recent case law of the Court of Justice and the General Court, and section IV explores in some detail the judgment of the UK Supreme Court in Jabar Ahmed.