Volume 7, Issue 3


Introduction: European Union and International Trade

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 303 (2001) William J. Davey. Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law. Opinion 1/94 (World Trade Organization – WTO), 1994 E.C.R. 1-5267. This Special Issue of the Columbia Journal of European Law on the European Union and International Trade is particularly timely. The field of international trade is one in which the European Union has an important position in the world. While there are, of course, other aspects of international relations in which the Union is active – the common foreign and security policy and development policy come quickly to […]


Human Rights Conditionality in the External Trade of the European Union: Legal and Legitimacy Problems

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 307 (2001) Diego J. Linán Nogueras. Ph.D., Professor of Public International Law and Jean Monnet Chair of European Law at the University of Granada. Luis M. Hinojosa Martinez. Ph.D., LL.M. (Lond.), Professor of Public International Law and European Law at the University of Granada. The establishment of a nexus between respect for human rights and external trade is a relatively recent phenomenon in international practice. Making the  European Union’s economic relations with third countries depend on respect for fundamental rights is an apparently simple political operation, that enjoys wide support because of the virtue of […]


The Delaware Effect: Keeping the Tiger in Its Cage. The European Experience of Mutual Recognition in Financial Services

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 337 (2001) Patrick B. Griffin. Maitre de conference, University Panthton-Assas (Paris II); Consultant, Vogel & Vogel, Paris, France. “Globalisation does not make a state powerless…. The market economy does not find harmony on its own account.” – Lionel Jospin, Speech to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, October 1999. For the purposes of this article, mutual recognition can be defined as a reciprocal agreement among jurisdictions to accept the others regulatory standards that govern the creation and conduct of companies and businesses. The effect of mutual recognition is to allow a company to establish and offer its services […]


Unitary Character of EC External Trade Relations

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 355 (2001) Rafael Leal-Arcas. J.D., Granada University (Spain), 1996; M.Phil., The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2000; LL.M., Columbia Law School, 2001; Currently, Stanford Program in International Legal Studies Fellow, Stanford Law School. Weiler commented in 1992 that “the EC may not speak with one voice but increasingly speaks like a choir.” The objective of this paper is to examine some of the ways that choir is developing, specifically, the circumstances under which Member States confer the exercise of their national competencies on the European Commission in the negotiation of international agreements. The […]


Case Law: Parfums Christian Dior v. Tuk Consultancy, and Assco Gerüste v. Layher, Joined Cases C-300/98 & C-392/98, 2000 E.C.R.

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 385 (2001) Dr. Marta Pertegás Sender. Institute for International Trade Law, K.U. Leuven; Nauta Dutilh, Brussels. Facts and procedure Central to the two joined cases was the assessment of the effects of the WTO- Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter “TRIPs Agreement” or “TRIPs”) in the enforcement of intellectual property rights before national courts. As defined by the Court of Justice,’ the primary objective of the TRIPs Agreement is to strengthen and harmonise the protection of intellectual property on a worldwide scale. In particular, Part III of the TRIPs Agreement relates to the enforcement […]


Case Law: Konsumentenombudsmannen v. Gourmet International Products AB, Case C-405/98 (Eur. Ct. J Mar. 8, 2001)

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 391 (2001) Evelyne Terryn. Assistant, Center for European Economic Law, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Advocaat. Free movement of goods; Freedom to provide services; Advertising; Selling arrangements, Measures having equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions; Justification in the interest of the protection of health. I. Facts and Procedure Sweden has an official policy of moderating alcohol consumption in the interest of public health and safety. The instruments of that policy include a national monopoly on retail sales of alcoholic beverages and a number of restrictions on advertising. The restrictions on advertising of article of the “Alkoholreklamlagen” were involved […]


How the European Community’s Banana Regulation Brought Back Solange If: The German Constitutional Court’s Decision of June 7, 2000

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 405 (2001) Julia C. Kupfer. J.D. Columbia University School of Law, 2001. On June 7, 2000, the German Constitutional Court was faced with the most recent installment in the Solange-Maastricht line of cases.’ At issue was the question of whether the German Constitutional Court would accept a reference from a lower German court as to the constitutionality of the European Community’s organization of the market in bananas, which, it was claimed, violated certain fundamental rights otherwise guaranteed by the German Basic Law’s essential, inalienable protection of fundamental rights. A preliminary reference in the case had […]


Global Foods, Local Tastes and Biotechnology: The New Legal Architecture of International Agriculture Trade

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 423 (2001) George E. C. York. J.D. Columbia University School of Law, 2001. We were taken to a fast-food cafj where our order was fed into a computer. Our hamburgers, made from the flesh of chemically impregnated cattle, had been broiled  over  counterfeit charcoal, placed between slices of artificially flavored cardboard and served to us by recycled juvenile delinquents. -– Jean-Michel Chapereau Do you know on this one block you can buy croissants in five different places? There’s one store called Bonjour Croissant. It makes me want to go to Paris and open a store […]


Leg. Dev.: Scope of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/3 1/EC of June 8, 2000

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 473 (2001) Thomas Livolsi. On June 8, 2000, the Council and the European Parliament adopted the Directive on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (“the E-Commerce Directive”), after  months of discussion. The Member States must bring into force the laws and regulations necessary to comply with the E-Commerce Directive by January 17, 2002.2 The Directive aims to establish a coherent legal framework for the development of electronic commerce within the single market by ensuring that “information society services” benefit from the fundamental European Union law principles […]


Book Review: The Individual, the Community, the State, and Law: The Contemporary Relevance of the Legal Philosophy of Léon Duguit

7 Colum. J. Eur. L. 477 (2001) reviewed by Martin A. Rogoff. Professor of Law, University of Maine School of Law. L’ÉTAT: LE DROIT OBJECTIF ET LA LOI POSITIVE. By Léon Duguit. Paris: Ancienne Librarie Thorin et Fils, 1901. 623 pages. Léon Duguit’s book L’Éat: Le Droit Objectif et la Loi PositiveI appeared exactly 100 years ago. Therein Duguit propounds theories of society and law that are remarkably responsive to debates about law and government which rage today in the United States and in many other countries in the world. Duguit presents views of the role of the state, the […]