Since the end of 2013, Germany has been governed by a “grand coalition” of the biggest parties—Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), together with its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). While one can generally call the hitherto work of the current government quite productive (regardless of any qualitative assessment), the first few months of the 18th legislature period painted a different picture: due to tough and slowly progressing negotiations over a new government, the German Parliament was paralyzed for a considerable time. After the election of 22 September 2013, in which Ms. Merkel's CDU missed an absolute majority, the constitutive session of the Bundestag took place on 22 October 2013, which was the last possible date within the thirty-day deadline as set out by Art. 39(2) of the Grundgesetz (German Basic Law). The new government, however, was elected not before 17 December 2013. In between, the new Bundestog could not effectively begin to work as the interplay with the government is an important part of the Parliament's work. Urgent business had to be left untouched. In order to end this deadlock, the factions of CDU/CSU and SPD took a unique step: they established a so-called “Main Committee” (Hauptausschuss), which was intended to serve as a preliminary body dealing with the most urgent tasks until a new government would finally be formed.

Due to the financial crisis, European states are struggling to make both ends meet and comply with budgetary requirements, This results in cutting pensions and the public wage bill, as well as in phasing out subsidies and other forms of assistance, Although welfare state arrangements have become more limited in the past several decades, especially now, in these times of austerity, it is worth asking how far states can go in limiting social welfare programs, On the one hand, it can be said that there need to be fundamental rights-based limits to the legitimate phasing out or cutting down of existing arrangements to ensure that a minimum level of social arrangements is at all times guaranteed. On the other hand, it is hard to curtail the legislature's freedom by setting such limits, as the political sensitivity, technical aspects, and budgetary implications of social measures seemingly do not allow for too much fundamental rights rhetoric.

This article builds upon the idea that the EU's regulatory efforts in the EU Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ) are embedded with difficulties. The article argues that the current strains in the EU-AFSJ policy-making regime are caused by two things in particular. First, the EU's tactic in the AFSJ appears to depart from the classic internal market-based formula of the removal of obstacles for market creation and thereby ventures into the EU criminal law domain with all of its inherent complexities, without an adequately matured legal framework to endorse its policies from within. Second, to the extent that the EU adopts the market theory template in the AFSJ, there are global elements to the EU's sanction policies, These features confirm a hybridity in which legal sources are interacting within the AFSJ field. There is a clear complexity to the EU's fight against financial crimes and its interaction with the multiple sources of EU law where the meanings of “regulatory” and “risk assessment” need to be clarified. This article suggests that the current approach by EU's institutions to push forward the market theory model is a mistake, and that the AFSJ needs to be analyzed within the context of “regulatory powers,” which would lead to a better understanding of the AFSJ framework. This article aims to do so by using the political science concept of “regulatory” to critique the EU's current strategy and thereby argue that the legal debate on the development of the AFSJ could benefit from a more nuanced reading of the definition of “regulatory,” and thereby help to construct the AFSJ and increase its effectiveness.

In one of his final press releases, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, urged that greater attention be given to the further deterioration of the human rights situation in Rakhine State. He submitted that the discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community in Rakhine could amount to crimes against humanity. In his final report, prior to the end of his six-year mandate, Quintana states that “extrajudicial killing, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment in detention, denial of due process and fair trial rights, and the forcible transfer and severe deprivation of liberty of populations has taken place on a large scale and has been directed against” the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State. However, there is no sign that any of the alleged crimes are being adequately investigated by the competent domestic authorities. Furthermore, the ICC does not have jurisdiction as Myanmar is not a State Party to the Rome Statute.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has arrived! Gone are the days of hagiography, when in the eyes of the academy and informed observers the Court could do no wrong. The pendulum has finally swung the other way. The judicial darling, if there is one today, is Strasbourg, not Luxembourg. Not hours had passed before the Court's 258-paragraph long Opinion 2/13 on the Draft Agreement on EU Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights was condemned as “exceptionally poor.” Critical voices have mounted steadily ever since, leading to nothing short of widespread “outrage.”

Opinion 2/13 is a sweeping blow. After four years of negotiations, it took the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or the Court) only a few paragraphs to pick to pieces the draft accession agreement on the EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), finding a conflict with the EU Treaties on ten grounds. The Court's message is clear: Accession, under the terms of the draft agreement, would risk undermining the very essence of the EU's constitutional system.

On 18 December 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered Opinion 2/13 and stunned the legal world by declaring that the Draft Agreement on the Accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights (the Accession Agreement) was incompatible with the constituent treaties of the Union. Although some experts, admittedly, had been skeptical about certain aspects of Draft Accession Agreement, no one seems to have expected an opinion so critical and uncompromising. The opinion has consequently received widespread disapproval in the EU legal blogosphere.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court of Justice) decided to strike again. On 18 December 2014, for the second time in history, the Court rejected the European Union's (EU) accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Although the judges do not seem to negate the idea as a matter of principle, they made the renegotiation of the Draft Accession Treaty very difficult, to say the least. The message sent by the Court of Justice to the Member States may have surprised some, but for many it was a rather expected development. The Court of Justice has always been a fierce defender and promoter of the autonomy of EU law. For that purpose, the procedure based on Article 218 (11) TFEU has been, among the others, the Court's greatest weapon. Over the years a clear pattern has emerged: Whenever there is a threat to the autonomy and to the Court's exclusive jurisdiction, the judges will not shy away from taking bold decisions going against the will of the Member States. For obvious reasons, the raison d'être behind the Court's decision is kept secret behind the doors of the deliberation rooms at Kirchberg in Luxembourg. Still, it cannot be denied that Opinion 2/13 shows that the Court of Justice will not give up its resistance to the ECHR accession so easily. In 1996, in Opinion 2/94, the Court held that the European Community, as the law stood then, had no competence to accede to ECHR. Now that Article 6(2) TEU provides for an obligation to accede, subject to conditions laid down in Protocol No 8 to the Founding Treaties, the Court has opted for strict interpretation of the latter, which, ultimately turns the caveats laid down therein into locks. It is clear that these caveats turned into locks are something that the judges will hold on to in the future and, by the same token, they will happily pursue interpretation that is very different from what the Member States intended when negotiating the Treaty of Lisbon and the Draft Accession Agreement.

Just before Christmas 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or the Court) gave its long-awaited ruling on the European Union's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This ruling, Opinion 2/13, is a complex judgment that raises many legal questions. This case comment sets out: A summary of the ruling; an assessment of the consequences of the ruling; and an initial critique of the Court's reasoning. On the latter point, the Court's ruling is fundamentally flawed. In short, the Court is seeking to protect the basic elements of EU law by disregarding the fundamental values upon which the Union was founded.