Volume 7, Issue 2


A European Charter: Towards a Constitution for the Union

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 159 (2001) Udo Di Fabio. Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Second Senate); Professor of Law, Universität Munchen. The European Charter of Fundamental Rights opens the door to a constitutional debate. The discussions, which revolve primarily around guaranteeing fundamental rights, express familiar entrenched positions that range from guaranteeing liberties to engineering social outcomes. However, more fundamentally the Charter is about what form the European Union (EU) will take in the future and about the core concept that will give the Union its identity. Categories based upon the closed nation-state are important starting points, […]


The Extra-National State: American Confederate Federalism and the European Union

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 173 (2001) Larry Catá Backer. Professor of Law. Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law, 150 S. College Street. Carlisle, PA 17013, USA, 717.240-5243 (direct), 717.240-5126 (fax). “I’ll be damned. So, if Gouverneur Morris were drafting today, he would have had to write ‘We, the Peoples of the United States.’ How different that sounds.” St. John pursued her advantage. “Good stylist that he was, that’s what Governeur Morris would have to write. But more correctly, ‘We, the Peoples of the signatory States.’ If he had had then to compose the phrase in the French he spoke so well, it would have been […]


Reclaiming a Feminist Vision: The Reconciliation of Paid Work and Family Life in European Union Law and Policy

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 241 (2001) Clare McGlynn. Reader in Law, Department of Law, University of Durham, UK. “The beginning of the twenty-first century is a symbolic moment to give shape to the new social contract on gender, in which de facto equality of men and women in the public and private domains will be socially accepted as a condition for democracy, a prerequisite for citizenship and a guarantee of individual autonomy and freedom, and will be reflected in all European Union policies… Both men and women, without discrimination on the grounds of sex, have a right to reconcile […]


Case Law: Arco Chemie

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 273 (2001) Dr. Geert van Calster. Institute of Energy and Environmental Law, K.U.Leuven, member of the Brussels Bar (geert.vancalster@law.kuleuven.ac.be). Judgment of 15 June 2000 in Joined Cases C-418/97 and C-419/97, Arco Chemie Nederland Ltd. v. Minister van VROM, and Vereniging Dorpsbelang Hees & Others v. Directeur van de dienst Milieu en Water van de Provincie Gelderland & Others (not yet reported). Waste – Framework Directive – Definition – Secondary raw materials. Once a substance falls within the definition of “waste”, an extensive regime of permits, taxes, etc., is set in motion. Consequently, qualifying a substance […]


Case Law: Case C-149/96, Portuguese Republic v. Council of the European Union (Eur.Ct.J. November 23, 1999), 1999 E.C.R. 1-8395

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 280 (2001) Dries Van Eeckhoutte. K.U. Leuven. Facts International trade in textile products has, since 1974, largely been regulated by the Multifibre Arrangement (“MFA”), a pragmatic arrangement between developing (i.e. exporting) countries, on the one hand, and developed(i.e. importing) countries on the other, which contravened many of the fundamental tenets of the GATT system. Indeed, the MFA was simply an instrument of trade restriction which was forced upon textile-exporting developing countries who had to adhere to it lest more stringent unilateral restrictions be imposed by their developed country partners. To the extent that it was […]


Leg. Dev.: Directive 2000/35/EC on Combating Late Payment in Commercial Transactions

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 293 (2001) Sophie A. Hausler.  The directive combating late payment in commercial transactions represents yet another example of the European Union’s influence on the contract law regimes of EU Member States. Efforts to arrive at Community legislative action on the subject of late payment reach back as far as 1994, when the European Parliament, in connection with its resolution on the integrated program in favor of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), asked the Commission to submit proposals to deal with the problem. In reaction, on May 12, 1995, the Commission adopted a recommendation on payment […]


Book Review: Martin Broberg, the European Commission’s Jurisdiction to Scrutinise Mergers

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 297 (2001) reviewed by Lawrence B. Landman. Dr. Landman earned his B.A. from SUNY, Stony Brook; his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law; his M.B.A. from Columbia University; and his Ph.D. from Roskilde University in Denmark. He works with Oxford Research in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Magle International Business Law in Lund, Sweden, helping high-technology firms develop, market, and license their technology. Morten Broberg’s The European Commission’s Jurisdiction to Scrutinise Mergers offers a thorough, comprehensive analysis of the jurisdictional aspects of the European Community’s Merger Control Regulation (the Regulation). This well- researched […]