Daily Archives: July 1, 1998


European Administrative and Regulatory Reform: Introduction to the Special Issue

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 493 (1998) Susan Rose-Ackerman. Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University. Regulatory policymaking in the European Union and in its Member States is a fruitful subject for comparative law. American lawyers can gain perspective from studying European administrative law, and comparative administrative law is of increasing practical importance to firms that sell and manufacture in Europe. Europe is a rich subject for comparative analysis because the English legal tradition is quite different from that of the continent, and even within the civil law countries, French public law differs in important ways […]


Regulation and Comitology: The EC Committee System in Regulatory Perspective

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 499 (1998) Michelle Egan. Assistant professor at the School of International Service, American University in Washington D.C. Dieter Wolf. Research Fellow, Center for European Law and Politics in Bremen, Germany. INTRODUCTION: GOVERNANCE, REGULATION AND CONTROL In his work on European policymaking, Giandomenico Majone identifies problems in controlling bureaucratic discretion and enforcing greater political accountability in the regulatory process. The debate about the political control of policymaking finds its intellectual antecedents in several stands of American political thought. The basic elements can be traced to the Madisorman theory of representation, which involves a balancing of conflicting issues, […]


Food Safety Regulation in the European Union and the United States: Different Cultures, Different Laws

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 525 (1998) Marsha A. Echols. Professor, School of Law, Howard Univerity. Symbol of belonging, code of social or cultural recognition, cuisine continues to separate, more than it unites. Local culture and attitudes influence regulations, an effect identifiable both in the European Union and in the United States. Such local influences are especially important to the development of measures regulating the production and sale of foods. Both the EU and the U.S. must assure their citizens of a safe food supply, while responding to significant differences in cultural influences and consumers ideas about what is safe […]


Parliamentary and Administrative Reforms in the Control of Intelligence Services in the European Union

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 545 (1998) Shlomo Shpiro. Shlomo Shpiro is an Israeli academic specializing in European security, democracy, and communications. Formerly a research coordinator at the Israeli parliament, he has studied, worked in research, and lectured at leading universities in Israel, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Norway. He currently lectures at the University of Cologne in Germany. INTRODUCTION-THE INHERENT CONFLICT BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND SECRECY From the early days of democracy, the need to control and regulate state organs that might abuse their powers was of paramount importance for both the people and their elected representatives. When discussing the politics […]


Community Competition Law Enforcement Deregulation and Re-Regulation: The Commission, National Authorities and Private Enforcement

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 579 (1998) Barry J. Rodger. Lecturer in Law, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Angus MacCulloch. Lecturer in Law, University of Manchester. This Article seeks to assess recent developments in the enforcement of competition law in the European Community. These developments, at both the Community and the Member State levels, seek generally to enhance the effectiveness of competition law and its deterrent effect. Two general strands of this enforcement policy shift will be identified. First, there is the shift in enforcement of competition law away from the Commission and Community law toward national authorities and national law. […]


The Policymaker’s Perspective on Administrative and Regulatory Reform in Europe

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 613 (1998) J. David Enriquez. Juris Doctor candidate, Columbia Law School; Special Issue Editor, The Columbia Journal of European Law. Before law school he was an Administrator at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1994 to 1996, where he was responsible for a project on administrative costs on businesses. Any distinction between “administrative reform” and “regulatory reform” is usually blurred or vague. “Regulatory reform” has often been broadly defined to encompass both substantive and procedural reform. Indeed, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has defined “regulation” as “the instruments by which governments […]


Better Lawmaking: The Experience and the View of the European Commission

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 617 (1998) Giuseppe Ciavarini Azzi. Director in the Secretariat General of the European Commission, Brussels. “Better lawmaking” is a phrase coined by the European Commission in 1995 to describe respect for legal principles (e.g., subsidiarity and proportionality) or practical criteria (e.g., the quality of drafting Community legislation, simplification and consolidation of existing legislation and improved access to information concerning Community law) enabling European Community legislation to respond more effectively to the objectives of integration and the concerns of citizens. The debate surrounding “better lawmaking” did not come to life overnight. It came to the fore […]


Improving the Quality of Law Drafting in Finland

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 629 (1998) Jyrki Tala, Juhani Korhonen & Kaijus Ervasti. Jyrki Tala, Research Manager, National Research Institute of Legal Policy. Juhani Korhonen, Senior Advisor, Public Management Department, Ministry of Finance. Kaijus Ervasti, Researcher, National Research Institute of Legal Policy. Since the beginning of the mid-1990s, several projects have been implemented to improve the quality of law drafting in Finland. At the end of 1997, two final proposals introduced improved and more comprehensive methods to assess and forecast the impact of new legislation. One of the proposals covers the economic effects of legislation and the other, the […]


Case Law: Bic Benelux

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 657 (1998) Gaëtan Verhoosel. Institute for Environmental & Energy Law, Collegium Falconis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Brussels. Case C-13196. Bic Benelux SA v. Belgian State (Eur. Ct. J. Mar. 20, 1997) (not yet reported). Obligation to give prior notification under Directive 83/189/EEC; Technical regulations and specifications; Marking of products subject to environmental tax Facts and Procedure In keeping with the well-known European Union effort to expand the use of economic instruments, in particular fiscal measures, in the field of environmental policy, several Member States have adopted legislation introducing environmental taxes over […]


Case Law: Marschall

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 668 (1998) Eva Brems. Fellow of the Belgian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Institute for Human Rights, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Case C-409/95. Heilmut Marschall v. Land Nordrhein-Westfalen (Eur. Ct. J. Nov. 11, 1997) (not yet reported). Equal treatment of men and women; Directive 76/207/EEC, Article 2(4); Affirmative action Facts and Procedure When Hellmut Marschall, a tenured teacher in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, applied for a higher grade post, he was informed by the District Authority that it intended to appoint a female candidate to the position. The Law on Civil Servants of Nordrhein-Westfalen provides in the second […]


Case Law: Région Wallonne v. Commission

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 675 (1998) Piet Van Nuffel. Assistant, International and European Law, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Case C-95/97. Région wallonne v. Commission, 1997 E.C.R. 1-1787. Case T-70/97. Région wallonne v. Commission (Ct. First Instance Sept. 29, 1997) (not yet reported). Action for annulment; Admissibility; Right of a regional authority to bring an action Facts and Procedure In June 1996, the Belgian authorities notified the Commission of the intention of the Walloon Region (Région wallonne) to grant financial assistance to the steel plant Forges de Clabecq. The objective was to grant the aid through Société wallonne de sidérurgie (SWS), […]


Leg. Dev.: Community Postal Services

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 683 (1998) Nyaguthii Chege. After several months of discussion and consultation, the European Parliament and Council adopted Directive 67/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, a detailed directive deregulating the Community’s postal services and establishing a timetable for the full liberalization of direct mail and cross-border mail services) Intended to create a common market in postal services, the Directive establishes rules to ensure greater harmonization, provides gradual and […]


Book Review: Postnational Democracy: The European Union in Search of a Political Philosophy. By Deirdre M. Curtin. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997. 62 Pages.

4 Colum. J. Eur. L. 703 (1998) reviewed by Karen Schiele. In Postnational Democracy: The European Union in Search of a Political Philosophy, Deirdre Curtin explores the concept of the nation-state in Europe and its continuing hold on the European collective conscience) Curtin provides both a concise history of how the nation-state concept has evolved and an abstract philosophical discussion of the problems that the preoccupation with the idea of nation-state poses to an international community. Postnational Democracy, then, encourages the reader to consider the difficulties that the lingering notion of nation-state presents. In essence, the book offers an effective […]