“Our Constitution … is called democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the greatest number.” This statement by Thukydides preceded the preamble of the draft constitutional treaty elaborated by the European Convention. Although not adopted by the intergovernmental conference, the proposed introduction illustrates that the Convention intended to attribute a central role to the concept of democracy – at least symbolically.

EU Member States have in recent years designed national schemes to support the development of renewable energy. For example, in systems of feed-in-tariffs the states guarantee for a given period of time plants generating electricity from renewable resources the market price plus a premium. These feed-in-tariffs have normally only been awarded to electricity generated in-state. The preference given to in-state industry has been challenged in court as contradicting the principle non-discrimination on the European internal market. The decision by national legislatures to limit the availability of feed-in-tariffs to electricity generated in-state, however, has—to the surprise of many—been found justifiable by the European Court of Justice. This Article illustrates how the objective to ensure system stability has emerged as the strongest ground of justification in the context of cross-border electricity trade and how similar arguments have actually been used previously in the context of the health care service sector. While the reasoning of the court is defendable, the court could have developed an even more nuanced and informative position if it had taken notice of additional aspects that have popped up in the U.S. debate on similar questions.

This Article examines the desirability of the universal recognition of the right of public access to legal information as a human right and therefore as part of a legal framework for improving national and global access to legal information. It discusses the right of public access to legal information as a legal right and the importance of its international human rights framework. The Article argues that every person has the right of public access to legal information, which casts a legal and moral duty on every government and every intergovernmental organization (IGO) with judicial and legislative functions to provide adequate and free access to its laws and law-related publications. It argues further that every government can afford the provision of adequate public access to its legal information and that the lack of political will to do so is the preeminent factor responsible for inadequate—and in some cases extremely poor—public access. Additionally, this Article advocates the universal recognition of the right of public access to legal information as a human right and makes a proposal for a UN Convention on the Right of Public Access to Legal Information. It provides the essential contents of the proposed UN Convention which incorporate The Hague Conference Guiding Principles to be Considered in Developing a Future Instrument. These contents provide valuable input for urgent interim national and regional laws and policies on public access to legal information, pending the Convention's entry into force. The proposed UN Convention will significantly enhance global access to official legal information that will promote widespread knowledge of the law. It will also facilitate national and transnational legal research and remedy the chronic injustice from liability under inaccessible laws under the doctrine of “ignorance of the law is no excuse”—which is similar to liability under ex post facto and nonexistent laws—and promote the proposed doctrine of “ignorance of inaccessible law is an excuse.”

During the last few years the German courts have had to face several cases in which companies — especially from the IT-sector — filed lawsuits against “headhunters.” “Headhunters” in this context are (usually) executive consultants who try to poach personnel from other companies by simply calling them and asking whether or not they want to change companies. Since skilled and qualified workers and employees are desperately but often unsuccessfully searched by innumerable German companies on the domestic and most recently also the European and international job-market, the methods of poaching have reached and sometimes crossed the borders of unfair practices. The courts faced with these cases had to draw these borders, a process this article attempts to outline.

The ECB has two mandates its primary and secondary mandate. Its primary mandate has been the focus of many discussions but its secondary mandate is less frequently discussed. Nevertheless this mandate has important objectives and should not be considered obsolete. This article examines the legal status of the secondary mandate of the ECB with regard to climate change. In particular this article will consider the role of the secondary mandate with regard to the Digital Euro and energy targets. The Digital Euro can be used as a monetary tool and improve payment systems. However, depending on its design the Digital Euro can use a considerable amount of energy. This article concludes that if the design of the Digital Euro does not impact the monetary objectives, the secondary mandate of the ECB determines the design of the Digital Euro.

The relationship between the Court of Justice and the Bundesverfassungsgericht is perhaps one of the most explored relationships in all of EU’s legal history. In attempting to understand and operationalize the uncertainty surrounding the positioning between EU and national constitutional orders, they have in some respects followed the footsteps of a typical life-long love story: in the early years of European integration, both courts appeared to be in denial of any romance, and entered into a conflict over the question of the final arbiter; they subsequently turned to flirting by moving away from an institutionally based conflict towards finding a common substantive ground; which resulted in finally abandoning the competition for domination, but rather embracing mutual respect and a heterarchical relationship. This brief piece follows these developments in fundamental rights review that for now end with the second German decision concerning the right to be forgotten.

The study seeks to answer the question of whether there are similarities between the methods used to limit judicial independence in Hungary during the last phase of the communist regime, i.e. before the democratic transition, and today, when many scholars believe that an authoritarian transition is taking place in this country. For this purpose, I argue that despite the undeniable fundamental differences between the political and legal system of these two periods, the mechanisms and ways as the independence of judiciary were and are influenced by the government can plausibly be compared. The analysis seems to support this presumption: both the formal instruments and the informal channels of influence in the hands of the ruling political forces show a number of similarities. Thus, even if there are differences in the degree of their application and result, from centralizing the system of judicial administration to replacing court leaders with politically loyal people there are a number of instruments that enable central government to influence the judiciary, while maintaining the appearance of judicial independence.

The lingering European financial crisis continues to threaten the Eurozone and, in the opinion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the very survival of the European idea. With this apocalyptic rhetoric, it is easily forgotten that only nine years earlier Europe overcame a predicament that was, at the time, equally described as the most challenging in its history. Two failed referendums in Member States of the European Union (Member States)—namely, in France and the Netherlands—stopped the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (Constitutional Treaty) in its tracks and led to an extended “period of reflection” for Europe's leaders. From this emerged a reboot of the Constitutional Treaty, now dubbed the Treaty of Lisbon, with few substantial changes, but more success throughout the ratification procedures. The final hurdle presented itself in the form of institutionally strong Constitutional Courts (CC) and Tribunals (CT) of the European Member States. Of these, the following were at one time or another seized with complaints against the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty: The Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof (Austrian CC), the Belgian CC, the Ústavní soud České republiky (Czech CC), the French Conseil Constitutionnel (French CC), the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (German CC), the Hungarian CC, the Latvijas Republikas Satversmes tiesa (Latvian CC), the Polish Trybunał Konstytucyjny (Polish CT), and the Tribunal Constitucional de España (Spanish CT).

Following the 24 November 2003 decision of the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH - Federal Court of Justice) the legal framework for upstream loans granted by companies in the legal form of a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH - Private Limited Company), i.e., loans by the GmbH to its direct and indirect shareholders or to an affiliate of such shareholder, has remained uncertain. The ruling of the BGH led to a broad spectrum of interpretations by legal scholars and practitioners – some even predicted the end of cash pooling arrangements for German corporations – which made it difficult for managers of a GmbH to continue existing cash pooling arrangements without changes to their original scope and conditions.

This article explores the role of constitutional judges in advancing constitutional literacy, understood as knowledge relating to the functioning of the constitutional order. Part of the inquiry is descriptive and geared towards identifying the modalities that courts today use to cultivate such literacy among the public, or segments thereof. The article also poses normative questions about literacy-boosting efforts. How do these relate to “typical” judicial functions? Are courts well-placed and equipped to disseminate constitutional knowledge? Based on an analysis of judicial practices, it is suggested that lay individuals are increasingly treated as a key constituency by courts, warranting the development of specially curated initiatives crafted with the values of inclusion, accessibility, and transparency in mind. This manifests notably in a turn to social media use and an incipient embrace of legal design thinking. The available literacy-boosting modalities are not without flaws, however, and we should be cognizant of limits regarding what can realistically be expected of courts in furthering popular constitutional knowledge. Notwithstanding room for improvement in the design and delivery of constitutional literacy, the existing judicial efforts when viewed in their entirety should be evaluated positively as making a meaningful contribution in meeting people’s interests in greater constitutional knowledge.

In several golden share cases, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “Court”) condemned Member States for reserving certain special rights in privatized companies for themselves. In spite of the Court's consistently strict approach in the golden share cases, the more recent golden share judgments demonstrate that the Court's practice is not free from uncertainties. In its case law, the Court seems to hesitate between the application of the freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital. Additionally, it is not entirely clear which measures are caught by provisions on the freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital.

Declining populations of marine mammals have led to growing concern about their conservation. As a result, a series of specific conservation measures have been put in place (bans on hunting and trading, establishment of protected marine areas). Such rules, although restoring the populations of some species of marine mammals, have nevertheless failed to protect them from the most challenging threat to their survival: the bycatch of non-target species. Accordingly, this Article highlights gaps within fisheries law, clarifying the efficacy of existing norms on the protection of the most endangered marine species of marine mammals, with a particular focus on cetaceans, from over-exploitation.

To this aim, the Article explores the peculiar norms developed by treaties of global and regional scope and the European Union (EU) with reference to specific species, including whales, seals, small cetaceans—referred to as direct protection. The Article then proceeds to an analysis of fisheries law that addresses, in an incidental manner, marine mammal protection—referred to as indirect protection.

The Article is based on the assumption that measures simply banning hunting or fishing, as envisaged by wildlife law, must necessarily be complemented by fisheries law—that is, Inter-regime linkages. Paradoxically, indirect protection can have a major impact in terms of improvement of both fish welfare and conservation; the problem lies in the fact that current fisheries law fails to provide an adequate response to bycatch. This Article proposes methods to improve fisheries law and also discusses whether the emerging concept of fish welfare can be an asset if included in fisheries rules; the Article ultimately contends that welfare issues must necessarily be part of future legal developments.

Victor Kattan's “From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891–1949” is an archival excavation of the Israeli-Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) conflict and its origins. This review will examine the contours of Kattan's book followed by a brief examination of objectivity in academic scholarship often enunciated through the concept of ‘balance’ as it relates to those scholars (like Kattan) working on the conflict. Finally, this review will explore some of the weakness of the arguments that Kattan advances.

There are a few premises underlying this discourse on the relationship between constitutional law and European human-rights law which I should reveal before we explore the relationship itself. I start with a functionalistic designation of the general legal process as being no more (and no less!) than a conflict-resolution process. From this perspective, the most important of my starting premises is what I consider to be an empirical fact, that is to say that the constitutional courts now produce jurisprudence(2) overtly and explicitly transcending the Enlightenment's illusion of complete separation between the competencies of the legislative and judicial branches of power.

Environmental standards should not be a hindrance for economically relevant projects — especially in the fields of sustainability and green energy. Therefore, the Dutch legislature implemented experimental instruments in the Crisis and Recovery Act to improve the flexible application of environmental standards. They did this by allowing competent authorities to deviate from these standards. This article analyzes this Dutch approach, which can be characterized as “bending the rules.” Are these instruments legally sound and how are the relevant provisions applied in practice? Dutch government is currently working on a fundamental change of the system of environmental law with a new Environment and Planning Act. Should this new system of environmental law include a general permanent provision to deviate from environmental standards? This article provides environmental scholars with some lessons that can be learned from the Dutch Approach.

The “post”-phase of a conflict has become the justification for both the possible action and the inaction of the Western states. It is not so much any longer that we would be averse to war in any circumstances, as the non-use of force principle in its absolute sense would require. Again, after a good fifty years of the UN and its raison d'etre – the guardianship of peace – we seem to have arrived at an era where ideological contestation no more has the deterrent effect that it did during the Cold War and, consequently, there are cases of the use of force that are accepted and even regarded as just as long as they are quick. When looking back at the NATO bombings of FRY in 1999 as the response to atrocities in Kosovo many are able to accept that ‘though illegal they were legitimate’ in some sense. This is the conclusion irrespective of whether one, at the time, was for action or inaction. Such a ‘condoning condemnation’ has become the popular middle road as so many other paradoxes in world politics. Through the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq the paradox has gained in strength. Although there is quite strong and unequivocal opposition to the wars and a condemnation for their illegality, the political elite of the West seems to be quick in forgetting scruples and taking a keen interest in the “post”-management of the targets, i.e. the states that are about to be or already have been ‘bombed into the stone age’ or into shambles in any case. There is a general rush to the “post”-phase; both in the sense that the tacit requirement for the condoning condemnation is that the action be quick – the use of force should be very limited in time – and, secondly, in the sense that already before the bombs fall (or during) the major reconstruction plans and projects are dealt. This article outlines some points of critique that could be launched at the phase when the majority cannot be bothered to re-analyze the wrongs committed ex ante.

Critiques of Robert Kagan's recent, inflamatory work on the nature and state of transatlanticisim seem to come in three forms: material, analytical and emotional. By “material” I mean critiques of the fundamental and more or less obvious facts and structures out of which he has spun his claims. These facts amount to little more than the less than revelatory reminder that the U.S. devotes considerably more resources to security and defense spending than do Europeans. Critiques of Kagan's work at this level are pointless. At least on this much, Kagan has it right: we are now all too familiar with the staggering statistic that reveals that American security and defense spending is equal to the total of the expenditures of the next twenty countries.

In the last fifteen years, the legal fight against bribery and corruption has evolved from the solitary effort of the United States with its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 78 et seq., to a global legal endeavor. During the same period of time, corporations have become increasingly engaged in transnational deals that require them to understand their obligations under a web of anti-corruption regulations. The stakes for businesses are high: fines can range in the tens of millions of dollars and individuals found guilty of corruption may be imprisoned for life.