by Leila Medina* INTRODUCTION Compared to the estimated age of our planet, which is 4.54 billion years, the anniversary of the Columbia Journal of European Law that we celebrate today may seem infinitely small. However, 30 years is the average time it takes for most trees to reach full maturity. I am therefore delighted to join you in celebrating this significant milestone, confident in the knowledge that the Columbia Journal of European Law has been nurturing the seeds for many passionate individuals in EU Law to grow with confidence and achieve their own maturity. Therefore, in my speech today, both […]
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by Pascal McDougall* ABSTRACT During the past fifteen years, many EU member states have been subject to “runs” whereby investors massively sell a country’s financial assets and trigger interest rate spikes that make the country’s debt explode. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the other EU institutions have done little to counter these debt crisis dynamics and, when they have helped indebted states, they have imposed gigantic fiscal contraction as a condition for aid. Unemployment has skyrocketed and left deep scars in the EU’s periphery. Defenders of the EU institutions’ crisis management have used arguments that are thoroughly legalized. They […]
by Federico Fabbrini* ABSTRACT The article compares the protection of human rights during the pandemic in the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) by analyzing judicial review of Covid-19 measures. In particular, the article searched all available Covid-19-related rulings delivered between the start of the pandemic and 30 June 2023 by state and federal supreme courts in the U.S., and top national and supranational courts in the EU and developed an original dataset of over 300 cases. This provides the first-ever systematic analysis of judicial review of pandemic measures by apex courts in consolidated constitutional democracies. The article […]
by Antonio Aloisi* ABSTRACT The green and digital transitions are increasingly described as the “twin transition” in EU policy documents, social partners’ strategic plans and academic debates. However, the exact meaning of this term remains ambiguous, and the interconnections between these transitions are largely unexplored. This paper aims to clarify the motivations and pitfalls behind their “twinning” and assess where and how their convergence might be successful. It considers the socioeconomic risks, policy trade-offs and implications for the future of work. The analysis covers major EU employment and social policy developments concerning workers’ environmental and digital rights, as enshrined in […]
by Kayla Mathurin* & Stefanie Haller** ABSTRACT In an era marked by deepening geopolitical tensions, growing economic nationalism, and divergent regulatory paths, the transatlantic relationship between the United States and the European Union stands at a critical juncture. Long considered a cornerstone of the post-World War II international legal and political order, the US-EU partnership has traditionally been underpinned by shared liberal democratic values, open markets, and a mutual commitment to multilateralism and the rule of law. Yet recent developments from escalating trade disputes and regulatory clashes in the digital economy to diverging approaches in international arbitration and competition law […]
Ilias Bantekas* ABSTRACT The lex sportiva embodies the notion that sport governing bodies (SGBs) possess full authority to promulgate their own rules and render these binding by reason of contract to all their constituent stakeholders, including, inter alia, athletes, clubs and national federations. Their non-profit character has allowed them to attract a preferential status and enjoy financial benefits generally out of reach to ordinary commercial actors (e.g., immunities, tax privileges), even though SGBs engage in significant revenue-generating activities. This preferential status has given them a dominant place in the marketplace of mega-sporting events and until recently shielded them from any […]
by Tamas Dezso Ziegler, Balázs Horváthy, Thomas Buijnink ABSTRACT This paper elaborates on the role of legal exceptionalism in European integration from the perspective of EU Member States, with special regards to Hungary’s position. Its aim is to prove two points. First, exceptionalism is a natural consequence of increased dependency among European countries. From a legal perspective, this dependency translates into extensive regulatory practices in sensitive fields and increased pooling of sovereignty. Under such circumstances, if states disrespect EU law, they can become renegades, which is a logical consequence of intense cooperation. Second, the EU as a political community can […]
by Maria Lucia Passador* ABSTRACT The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) is a landmark piece of legislation designed to regulate AI systems according to their risk levels and ensure the protection of fundamental rights. This paper focuses on the interplay between the AI Act and prudential supervision within the EU banking sector, with a particular focus on the role of the European Central Bank (ECB). The study delves into the legal framework underpinning the ECB’s supervisory responsibilities, and prudential tasks, also examining the AI governance, as well as the collaborative dynamics between the ECB, the AI Office, and the […]
Helen Jennings* ABSTRACT This paper examines a development in recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court,” “ECtHR”) regarding the prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“Article 3,” “ECHR”). Since the 2010s, the Court has linked the prohibition of degrading treatment uniquely with the concept of human dignity.1 In cases regarding certain applicant groups, in particular women from the Roma population and LGBT+ people, the Court has used the concept of human dignity to radically expand the typical boundaries of protection offered under Article 3. This paper […]
by: Justin Lindeboom** ABSTRACT In EU constitutional law scholarship, comparisons with US constitutional law have been both a major intergenerational topic of interest and a significant blind spot. On the one hand, similarities and differences in constitutional DNA and federal architecture have been analyzed by multiple generations of scholars over the past four decades.[1] Less attention, however, has been given to other avenues for EU–US comparative constitutional analysis, such as the modalities of negative market integration,[2] the procedural law governing “federal” (more accurately “supranational” in the EU context) courts,[3] or even the development of constitutional principles over time.[4] In this interview, […]
by: Sarah Ganty* & Dimitry V. Kochenov** ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) deploys a number of legal techniques in an effort to make sure that virtually no denial of racialized noncitizens’ rights–across the spectrum from equality and dignity to the right to life–is ever presented as a violation of EU law, even as the death-toll climbs to the dozens of thousands, turning the Mediterranean Sea into a mass grave through the EU’s and Member States’ incessant efforts. Making this possible is the work of what we would term “EU lawlessness law”: a careful summoning of diverse legal techniques to make […]
by: Peter Davis* INTRODUCTION This paper argues that a right to encryption exists under the European Charter of Fundamental Rights[1] (“Charter”). The primary consequence of this right, as elaborated below, is to preclude any legal instrument within the scope of the Charter’s application that indiscriminately reduces the efficacy of encryption in mass-market applications and devices. Or, put in “Crypto Wars”[2] vernacular, this paper claims that encryption “backdoors” are prohibited as a matter of EU law. On its face, this is an ambitious claim. Until recently,[3] “right to encryption” has only been spoken of gingerly in English language academic discourse[4] (though […]
by: Ivana Isailović* ABSTRACT The US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs—alongside transnational campaigns aimed at chipping away abortion access across EU Member States—has triggered concerns by EU institutions and governments on access to abortion in the Union. This paper maps out the ways in which the EU regulates abortion through economic and human rights frameworks and evaluates their effects on gender equality. I argue that current EU legal frameworks contribute to producing a system of stratified reproductive freedom which entrenches intersectional gender-based inequalities. On the one hand, EU economic law protects the reproductive freedom of women and pregnant people who […]
by: Daniel Calleja, Tim Maxian Rusche, Trajan Shipley* “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises” Jean Monnet[1] INTRODUCTION Since 2008, the Union faced a series of crises. The response – sometimes after initial attempts by Member States to “go it alone” – was ultimately always found at the level of the Union, within the existing EU Treaties, as they stood after the Treaty of Lisbon, and entailed new tasks and new responsibilities for the Union.[2] Sometimes, available legal options were straightforward: The Europeanisation of banking supervision relied on […]
by: Dora Kostakopoulou* Migration is a critical policy issue on a global scale. The number of international migrants and refugees worldwide has continued to grow rapidly in the 21st century while the decline in growth in working age population in the developed world ranges from moderate to severe in various countries. Environmental degradation and climate change are bound to induce large scale displacements of people in the near future as well as to expose the general lack of preparedness and deficiencies in policy in European Union countries and elsewhere. Yet, politicians are still attracted to the zero-migration myth and to restrictive migration […]
by Alessio Azzutti,* Pedro M. Batista,** Wolf-Georg Ringe*** Banking supervisors worldwide recognize the pressing need to harness frontier supervisory technology (SupTech) such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency, enhance analytical capabilities, and augment decision-making. The European Central Bank (ECB) is no exception and has established a dedicated SupTech Hub to explore these opportunities. While existing literature primarily focuses on the techno-economic aspects of AI adoption by financial supervisors, this Article examines its techno-legal boundaries. The integration of AI-related technologies into banking supervision raises complex questions of fairness, transparency, and accountability, which, if not adequately addressed, can jeopardize the […]
18 Colum. J. Eur. L. 519 (2012) JUDGMENTS OF THE COURT (SECOND CHAMBER) IN CASE C-272/09 P, KME GERMANY, KME FRANCE SAS AND KME ITALY SPA V EUROPEAN COMMISSION, CASE C-386/10 P, CHALKOR AE EPEXERGASIAS METALLON V EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND CASE C-389/10 P, KME GERMANY, KME FRANCE SAS AND KME ITALY SPA V EUROPEAN COMMISSION OF 8 DECEMBER 2011, NYR Pieter Van Cleynenbreugel, Fellow Research Foundation Flanders, Research Unit Economic Law, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven – University of Leuven, Belgium. LL.M. (Harvard University); LL.M., LL.B. (KU Leuven-University of Leuven).
18 Colum. J. Eur. L. 473 (2012) Christopher H. Bovis, JD, MPhil, LLM, FRSA, H.K. Bevan Chair in Law, Professor of European Business Law, University of Hull. European States are changing their role and their responsibilities in the process of delivering public services. Recent developments have shown that public services require state intervention for their provision, organization, and delivery. Public services often emerge and interface in a sui generis marketplace that does not correspond to private markets. This axiom implies the relative inability of anti-trust law and policy to regulate this marketplace, alongside an overwhelming need for safeguarding the principles of transparency and accountability. The aforementioned principles underpin modern EU public sector governance. […]
18 Colum. J. Eur. L. 441 (2012) C.M.A. McCauliff. The economic impulses for a united Europe play a familiar part in the discussion of the origins ofEuropean integration; however, the importance of the Christian Democratic philosophical framework underlying the actions of several of the politicians who served as impetuses for the formation of the European Union is little examined in scholarly literature. For a time, a democratic approach to Aristotelian philosophy as Jacques Maritain formulated it provided some of the consensus that held the Union together. While this is no longer the case, nothing else has replaced this focused commitment. The Union faces much disunity now and has been subject to many […]