15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 531 (2009) Peter Van Elsuwege. Assistant Professor, Ghent University (Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence). In its judgment in Commission v. Council (C-91/05), delivered on May 20, 2008, the European Court of Justice annulled Council Decision 2004/833/CFSP, Providing a European Union Contribution to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the Framework of the Moratorium on Small Arms and Light Weapons. Based on Article 47 EU, the Court concluded that the contested Decision, which pursues objectives not only falling within Common Foreign and Security Policy but also Community development cooperation policy, should have been adopted under the EC Treaty and not the EU Treaty. […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 561 (2009) reviewed by Brendon Fleming. Executive Editor, Columbia Journal of European Law. I. INTRODUCTION: A COMPREHENSIVE PRIMER AND EASY-TO-USE REFERENCE FOR U.S. PRACTITIONERS As the European Union grows in Member States, its importance as an entity unto itself on the world stage will also continue to grow. And as the global financial crisis strains the internal partnerships of the European Union, it is ever more important for American lawyers to understand it. This six-volume set, Administrative Law of the European Union, written and edited by some of the world’s foremost experts on EU and administrative law, facilitates that understanding. American lawyers whose practices […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 343 (2009) reviewed by Gregory A. Odegaard. Editor-in-Chief, Columbia Journal of European Law. There are few topics that generate more interest in contemporary European scholarship than the development of a pan-European citizenship. In fact, the very existence of this special issue of  The Columbia Journal of European Law is evidence of the current activity in this rapidly evolving field. However, despite the large amount of attention being devoted to this area, it is, in fact, a very recent concern. As George Bermann pointedly asks at the outset of this special issue: “Who would have imagined […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 321 (2009) Nathan Cambien M.Jur. University of Oxford; Ph. D. fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders, Institute for European law, University of Leuven. The author wishes to thank Tim Corthaut for his valuable comments and suggestions. On July 25, 2008, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (“ECJ” or “Court”), sitting as the Grand Chamber, handed down its judgment inBlaise Baheten Metock and Others v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform[1],  a mere four months after receiving a request for a preliminary ruling from the High Court of Ireland. Metock and Others is a […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 163 (2009) Dear Reader, In the fifteen years since our initial publication, The Columbia Journal of European Law has gone from strength to strength. At present, it is the most cited European law journal in North America, and one of the most cited in the world. Due to the tremendous number of submissions we receive and the logistical demands of a print publication, the editors have decided that a secondary outlet for contemporary research is appropriate. To this end, CJEL has launched an online supplement to complement the print Journal. Because of the space and […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 165 (2009) George A. Bermann. Jean Monnet Professor of European Law and Walter Gellhorn Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Who would have imagined even fifteen years ago that a notion of “EU citizenship” would come to occupy center-stage in the arena of EU legal developments and widely permeate fields of EU law to which citizenship at the EU level long appeared to have little to say? By contrast, Member State citizenship lay at the heart of things from the start, as rights and obligations alike seemed to turn, at least largely, on whether an […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 169 (2009) Dimitry Kochenov LL.M. (CEU, Budapest), LL.D. (Groningen). Assistant Professor of European Law, Department of Corporate and European Law, and Fellow of the Graduate School of Law, University of Groningen. Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat 26, 9712EK Groningen, The Netherlands. Parts of this article have been presented at the UACES annual conferences in Portsmouth (September 2007) and Edinburgh (September 2008), at a conference at the Birmingham School of Law (July 2008), and made the core of my Byrd Lecture at James Madison University (October 2008). I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Laurence W. Gormley, […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 239 (2009) Marlene Wind. Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen. As a result of recent developments in the European Union, governments no longer have the exclusive authority to decide who can reside and work in their territories or who is eligible for the social provisions that have traditionally been reserved for their own nationals. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has recently interpreted Union citizenship to confer the benefits associated with EU free movement rights on all citizens of EU Member States. According to the ECJ, there is now so much “financial solidarity” between the EU […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 265 (2009) Willem Maas. Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and Associate Professor of Political Science and Public & International Affairs, Glendon College, York University. Grateful acknowledgements to Jenilee Ward for research assistance. In theory, citizenship denotes intrinsic status, signifying both full membership in the political community and a set of rights that adhere inherently and equally to all citizens. In practice, however, the rights of citizenship are variable and differentiated, and governments often approach citizenship not as a fundamental birthright or basic legal status but rather as a policy tool that is subject to […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 281 (2009) Miriam Aziz. Associate Professor of Law, University of Siena, Italy. This contribution was presented as a seminar paper as part of Cornell Law School’s Berger Program in November 2007. In anticipation of this Special Issue on European Citizenship, the Editors of The Columbia Journal of European Law commissioned an Article from Professor Aziz. We asked her to reflect on her experience with the European project, specifically how the idea of citizenship has guided European development. Drawing from her own interactions with members of the Laeken Convention, as well as the experiences of others, […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 299 (2009) Spencer Wolff. B.A., Harvard College (2002); M.A., Department of Comparative Literature, Yale University (2005); J.D., Columbia Law School and Master 2 in droit et globalisation économique, Sciences Po Paris (expected 2010). This Note analyzes Germany’s citizenship policies in the latter half of the Twentieth Century via four landmark verdicts of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). Germany’s historical prohibition on dual-citizenship and its legislative commitment to the exclusive transmission of German citizenship by bloodline (jus sanguinis) have been interpreted as continued evidence of Germany’s fixation on an ethnocentric model of citizenship even in […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 1 (2008 – 2009) Tony Joris. Jean Monnet Professor, Centre for European Law, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Jan Vandenberghe. Researcher, sponsored by the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders, Centre for European Law, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. In this article we analyze the relationship between the Council of Europe and the European Union. The starting point of this analysis is that the two organizations are natural partners, although their partnership is sometimes shaky and merits reform. First we give a brief overview of the origins and development of cooperation between the two organizations, focusing on […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 43 (2008 – 2009) Edward S. Adams. Howard E. Buhse Professor of Finance and Law, Director of CLE Programs, and Co-Director of Kommerstad Center for Business Law and Entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota Law School. J.D., University of Chicago Law School. M.B.A., Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. B.A., Knox College. Kate McKnight and Mark Creer provided invaluable assistance and support as research assistants for this Article. Jason K. Fincke. Honors Attorney, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Former clerk to Judge Joseph T. Carter, First Judicial District of Minnesota. J.D., cum laude, […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 89 (2008 – 2009) Iyiola Solanke.Lecturer, Norwich Law School, University of East Anglia. BA (Hon.) (London), MSc, Ph. D, London School of Economics. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) currently comprises twenty seven judges and eight Advocates General who together make law affecting citizens of the European Union over a wide range of social and economic issues, including racial and ethnic equality. However, the ECJ’s composition remains unreflective of the millions of black and migrant European Union citizens whom it serves. As the rulings of the Court reach into the everyday lives of an increasing […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 123 (2008 – 2009) Aravind R. Ganesh. LL.B (Hons), King’s College, London, 2008; J.D., Columbia Law School, 2008. This note addresses certain complications inherent in governance with regards to posted workers, i.e. workers posted on a temporary basis from one Member State of the Union to another, for the provision of services in the host Member State. In particular, this note attempts to explain how the current Directive 96/71/EC (the “Posted Workers’ Directive”) sets out mechanisms that produce socially inefficient levels of minimum protections for such posted workers that have to be provided by their […]

15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 143 (2008 – 2009) Nicolas Hachez. LL.M., NYU School of Law; Research Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate, Institute for International Law and Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, University of Leuven. Special thanks to Tim Corthaut for his insightful remarks on an earlier draft of this paper. PRESENTATION OF ECJ CASE NO. C-308/06 OF JUNE 3, 2008 – “INTERTANKO” On July 4, 2006, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Queen’s Bench Division (“High Court”), used Article 234 of the EC Treaty to refer for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice […]

14 Colum. J. Eur. L. 649 (2008) Vasiliki E. Christou. Special Scientist, Athens Law Faculty, Greece. Ph.D. (Heidelberg), LL.M., LL.B. (Athens). The Schengen Information System, otherwise known as SIS, is a large-scale database system created by the Schengen Convention as a compensatory measure following the abolition of controls at internal borders within the Schengen area which includes the majority of European states. The Schengen Convention entered into force in 1985, as an intergovernmental agreement among the States of the Benelux Economic Union, Germany and France. The resulting Schengen acquis was later, on June 1990, integrated into the European Union through […]

14 Colum. J. Eur. L. 621 (2008) Maciej Taborowski, Institute of Legal Studies, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. The author is grateful to Tim Corthaut (K.U. Leuven) for his inspiring remarks on an earlier version of this contribution and to Lukasz Abramowicz (University of Pennsylvania) for the linguistic overhaul. I owe special thanks to Zuzanna Szmelter. All errors and omissions remain the sole responsibility of the author. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan became the President of the USA, Prince Charles married Lady Di, and Greece was about to join the Community, the ECJ handed down its judgment […]

14 Colum. J. Eur. L. 597 (2008) Dean Chapman, graduated with a J.D. from Columbia Law School in May 2008 as a Stone Scholar and will be an Associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in New York beginning in September 2008. Special thanks to Richard Winfield, Lecturer-in-Law of Comparative Mass Media, for his assistance with this paper. Though widely criticized for suppressing freedom of expression, criminal defamation and libel laws are still on the books in many European states. Prosecutions may be brought privately by the individual affected or publicly by the government. This paper focuses on the […]