By Alexandros Kazimirov The creation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office was a thirty-year effort to balance national sovereignty with supranational authority. Yet, just two years after its launch, the agency’s expanded role is an unintended consequence of everything that occurred during its establishment. Specifically, the expansion of the European Union’s budgetary base is set to fundamentally transform the Office’s caseload. But a transformation in scope requires structural reforms as well. This post outlines how a recent surge of investments in defense and energy presents an opportunity to reform the Office into an independent enforcement agency capable of delivering meaningful […]
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By Mauro Fragale and Valentina Grilli* The Deepfake Dilemma: Legal Implications of AI-Generated Content In July, X (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk shared a parody Kamala Harris campaign, in which the candidate for the United States (US) presidency – or rather, an AI-manipulated version of her voice – exposed herself as an incompetent, token candidate. The incident intensified an ongoing global debate about AI-generated misinformation, particularly as it affects important elections. Just a year ago, European Union (EU) institutions voiced their worries for this increasingly diffused phenomenon: in the wake of Russian efforts to undermine public opinion and influence citizens […]
By Fathima Rena Abdulla Much has been said about equality in the context of access to “consumption” of technology through discourses on net neutrality and the digital divide (see, most recently, §§ 9-12, 78th Session UNGA, Item 85, Report of the Secretary-General). The discourse on equal access to ownership of technology has been comparatively limited. Spectrum allocation policies are especially important, as they provide one of the few ways to own the means to produce or create technological content. As Europe strives to ensure equitable access to digital technologies, exemplified by Principle 12 of the European Declaration on Digital Rights […]
By Afrah Abdul, law student at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi Introduction Year 2022, P&O Ferries sent shockwaves through the UK labour market by abruptly dismissing nearly 800 seafarers without notice or consultation. This unprecedented move not only disrupted vital shipping routes but also ignited a fierce debate about the adequacy of UK redundancy laws in protecting workers’ rights. The case exposes significant gaps in UK redundancy laws and challenges the effectiveness of current employee protections, necessitating a re-evaluation of the legal framework in a post-Brexit context. Background of the P&O Ferries Case On March 17, 2022, […]
By Ibrahim Ati On September 8, 2023, the Belgian Court of Cassation initiated a radical shift in established arbitration law by challenging the sovereignty of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and other sports governing bodies when their awards intersect with European Union (EU) law.[1] This move will likely ignite a profound reconsideration of the enforceability and recognition of Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) awards within the EU’s legal framework when based even partly on European law elements. At its heart, the pivotal query, for which the RFC Seraing and its legal representatives advocated for years across multiple […]
By: Dr. Aleydis Nissen, Leiden Law School and the Free Universities of Brussels In 2010, the United States created two highly innovative legal obligations to ensure corporate respect for human rights. This post explains that not much is left of these obligations nowadays, and directs the reader to my new book to learn more about how the United States has inspired the European Union to adopt similar regulations, but with more impact. Even before the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights were adopted in 2011, the United States had already innovated in the field of business and […]
By: Daron Tan, LL.M., Columbia Law School, 2018 I want to extend my gratitude to Professor Nicholas Bamforth for his comments on an earlier draft of this piece. All errors remain my own. I. Introduction The European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) has been increasingly willing to recognize the positive duties of States and public authorities to realize the right to equality that is protected by Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). This development has been most noticeable in the areas of indirect discrimination, parental rights, and gender-based violence. However, this development in the Article 14 […]
By Theodore Chua, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School I. Introduction With the modernization of databases and search engines, information seemingly lost in a sea of information can be retrieved almost instantaneously. Due to the value of analyzing personal data (e.g. for the purpose of understanding voter demographics or consumer groups), legislatures are alive to the need for data protection laws regulating how personal data can be processed or transferred. Paving the way forward, the EU (then the EC) in 1995 enacted a single data protection law—the Data Protection Directive (the “Directive”)—to establish uniform data protection standards across member states. […]
By Abigail Hopper, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School The European Court of Justice (ECJ) took a step toward clarifying the antitrust implications of loyalty rebates offered by dominant firms in its Intel decision released on September 6. The decision rejected the interpretation of the General Court (GC), which ruled that Intel’s loyalty rebates were illegal per se because they were conditioned on exclusivity. The ECJ clarified that although rebates conditioned on exclusivity were presumed to violate Article 102 TFEU, the presumption is just that – a presumption. A firm offering exclusivity rebates can rebut the presumption by showing evidence […]
By Emily Hush, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School I want to extend my sincere thanks to Professor Michael B. Gerrard of Columbia Law School and Professor Matthew Scott of Lund University Faculty of Law for their invaluable assistance on this project. All errors are my own. I. Introduction The displacement of persons due to environmental disasters exacerbated by climate change has already begun. The flow will continue to increase throughout the course of this century. Despite this growing population of migrants, the world has no legal framework in place for their reception and protection. Sweden and Finland used to […]
Jens Dammann, William Stamps Farish Professor in Law, the University of Texas School of Law.* Note: This full-length Article appears in Volume 23, Issue 2 of the Columbia Journal of European Law, available soon in print and online via HeinOnline, LexisNexis, and Westlaw. Introduction On June 23, 2016 U.K. voters did the unthinkable and voted, by a narrow margin, for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.[1] Such a move is entirely legal. The Treaty on European Union explicitly gives Member States the right to withdraw from the European Union.[2] Nonetheless, the outcome was unexpected.[3] Most pundits had predicted a victory for […]
Joanna Diane Caytas, JD Candidate, Columbia Law School 2017 As robots, machine learning, and intelligent automation shape ever more areas of our lives and jobs, many assume that, because machines have been around since centuries, laws applicable to robots will just require some well-adjusted analogies. But they would be wrong, and the need for a Law of Robotics is becoming increasingly more evident. Yet, the ideas proposed to get this started are mired in controversy. Human labor has been substituted most effectively by machines for well over two centuries now, and quasi-Luddite warfare against technology has been around just as long. […]
By Emily Hush, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School It is no secret that the planet is warming and that humans had something to do with it. Over the last 150 years, the global average concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased to unprecedented dangerous levels and it continues to rise. As the climate becomes warmer, the world faces ocean acidification, sea level rise, decreasing biodiversity, and more extreme weather events. Sustainable development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” is central to the international […]
By Lee Hill, J.D. Candidate, Columbia Law School The project of European integration is facing a potential crossroads as sociopolitical developments within and without the European Union place strain on institutional capacity. While economic and fiscal coordination issues rightly attract significant attention, Europe’s leaders have turned to the concept of greater security integration as a possible avenue through which to revive collective support for the EU. In particular, the concept of supra-national military coordination for its potential to address major security concerns while also recommitting the EU member states in the wake of Brexit. Whether military integration can act as […]
Dan Li, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School Europe and the United States are both global economic powers, each leading in various areas. Over the years, economic integration between Europe and the United States increased significantly. The number of cross-border takeovers mushroomed. Much convergence was noticeable between the European and U.S. corporate governance systems. However, the regulatory takeover regimes in Europe and the U.S. remain starkly different. The prevailing view is that takeover regulations aim to maximize shareholder value – they are designed to encourage beneficial takeovers and minimize wasteful ones. To achieve the effect of encouraging beneficial takeovers, the […]
Haozhou (Nick) Qiu, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School Introduction December 8, 2016 marked the final day of the UK Supreme Court’s hearing on Brexit and Article 50. Presided over by an unprecedented 11 judges, the case concerned the appeal by the UK government against the November High Court ruling on the matter. The prior judgment stated that notification of an intention to leave the EU under Article 50 cannot be given based on royal prerogative alone; instead, formal legislation by Parliament is required. The Supreme Court hearing lasted four days and the court is expected to deliver its opinion […]
Tom Herrenberg* | PhD candidate and lecturer at Leiden Law School | Co-editor of The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law (Leiden University Press, 2016) (together with Paul Cliteur) 1. Introduction “Do you want more or less European Union?! … Do you want more or less Partij van de Arbeid (the Dutch center-left Labor Party, added)?! … And thirdly, although actually I’m not allowed to say this … Do you want, in this city and in the Netherlands, more or fewer Moroccans?!” These were the three questions Geert Wilders, the leader of the popular Dutch right-wing Partij voor de Vrijheid […]
Casidhe McClone, Columbia Law School J.D. Candidate 2018 With 3.8% of the global population reporting some use of the drug in 2014, cannabis use has increased roughly 27% since 1998. While 3.8% may seem like a low number, it is still high enough to rank marijuana as the most cultivated, produced, trafficked and consumed drug in the world (using 2014 statistics). Considering the drug’s prevalence, some states have pursued an approach to regulation called decriminalization, through which the drug remains illegal but enforcement against users is deprioritized. One EU member, Portugal, took a bigger step 15 years ago and formally […]
Gan Hui Zhen | JD Candidate, Columbia Law School 2018 When the EU Member States introduced EU Citizenship into the 1993 Maastricht Treaty, they arguably did not foresee that this would open up the Pandora’s box that eventually led to the creation of “welfare tourism.” After all, EU Citizenship as originally conceived only granted a small range of civil and political rights – most significantly, the right to vote, and the right to stand as candidate in elections to the European Parliament, as embodied in Article 20, Section 2(a) TFEU. However, EU Citizenship underwent a radical expansion, enabled by the […]