The proponents of international courts (ICs) expect that creating formal legal institutions will help to increase respect for international law. International relations scholars question such claims, since ICs have no tools to compel state compliance. Such views are premised on the notion that states have unique preferences that ICs must satisfy in order to be effective. The tipping point argument is premised on the notion that within each state are actors with numerous conflicting preferences. ICs can act as tipping point actors, building and giving resources to compliance constituencies—coalitions of actors within and outside of states—that favour policies that happen to also be congruent with international law.

Having briefly traced the history of EU criminal law, this chapter first examines the new rules governing the competency of the EU in criminal law matters deriving from the Lisbon Treaty. Europol and Eurojust, the EU institutions that have been created with a view to fighting trans-border crime are examined, and the pros and cons of a possible further institution, the European Public Prosecutor are discussed. A final section examines the impact of the EU Charter, and the need to establish in this area an order of precedence between the EU Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights.

This lecture offers a justification of the choice of a career as an EU lawyer, which was made at the beginning of the 1970s. Its 40-year perspective covers a variety of themes, beginning with the political aims and values that underpin the European project. This is followed by a section on the development of the Treaty and Union structure, from the three original Communities to the Union of the Lisbon Treaty. Other themes are: the progressive enlargement of the Union’s membership, including the legal challenges facing new Member States; the expansion of Union competences, from the original objective of establishing a general common market; and, finally, the Union’s functional constitution, described as the chef d’oeuvre of the Court of Justice.

In December 2010 the European Commission published its long-awaited proposals for the reform of the Brussels I Regulation on civil jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments. These concern matters of considerable practical importance. But they also expose fundamental questions about the Regulation’s proper scope, and its role in complex commercial disputes, which will persist long after the terms of the amended Regulation are settled.

The Lisbon Treaty has fundamentally revised the external relations of the EU in pursuit of more visibility, coherence and consistency. The EU is, for instance, given a single legal personality, the pillar structure is (formally) abolished, new functions are created to reinforce its external representation and external policies appear to be streamlined. But is there more to it than meets the eye? A critical legal assessment is given of the major Treaty modifications relating to the EU external relations whilst addressing two underlying issues. First it is questioned whether the Member States have really given up their traditional reluctance to share fully the international scene with the EU. It is argued that the Lisbon Treaty in fact means to redress the balance in favour of intergovernmentalism under CFSP. A second crucial and related issue links to the silent dialogue with the CJEU to be discerned in the Lisbon Treaty. It wavers between the codification of important case law, such as Kadi, and attempts at containing or even reversing case law which was more prejudicial to the Member States’ interests, such as the Ecowas judgment. In so doing the Lisbon Treaty again raises interesting yet complex legal questions which will most likely necessitate further clarification through case law.

Since the precarious state of Greece’s public finances was revealed last October, efforts to save the ‘cradle of Europe’ are in full swing. Hence a huge rescue package for Greece was agreed on in April 2010. This was followed by an even larger EU Stabilisation Fund worth €750 billion for States encountering financial problems. While the economic aspects of these rescue mechanisms have been debated intensively, their legality has escaped closer examination. Rushed through parliaments as an ‘economic emergency’, the peoples of Europe were more or less presented with a ‘fait accompli’. But are these measures really legal under EU law? What about the notorious ‘no bailout’ clause? And what about the alternatives to the rescue packages: Would it have been legal to withdraw from EMU? Or to expel a State from EMU? This chapter will shed some light on these important aspects of EU law.

This chapter provides a case study in regulatory multi-level governance within the European Union, with a substantive focus on the regime in place for the authorisation of cultivation of genetically modified crops. Whilst presenting a detailed account of the supranational level regime, it seeks explicitly to write in the subnational, regional dimension to our accounts of policy evolution in this highly controversial area. The chapter considers regions’ ‘upstream’ engagement in the policy processes at EU level, through judicial challenge to EU measures as well as attempts to influence supranational level legislative reform, which is currently ongoing. In this regard, it looks both at the role of regions within this process, and within the terms of the resultant legislation. In addition, the chapter considers regions’ ‘downstream’ engagement, in their implementation and application of the existing rules. As a number of regions have sought to declare themselves GM-free zones, this chapter explores the legality of such local and regional GM crop cultivation bans, as a matter of EU law. In short, the chapter contributes further to our understandings of the place held by regions within the EU system of governance demonstrating how regions may themselves be both legal and political actors of significance within the EU order, whose interests are not always congruent with that of their Member State.

The chapter will consider what a margin squeeze is, whether it is appropriate for a competition authority to try and prevent margin squeezes using competition law rules and, if so, what tests can be used to identify an unlawful margin squeeze and to distinguish it from legitimate competition on the merits.

The pitfalls of the relationship between European and national judges constitute a well-travelled ground in literature, especially with regard to ‘sagas’ over the reconciliation of national sovereignty with EU law primacy. Hence, the contribution that this article is attempting to make is to explore the judicial understanding and potential of the concept of constitutional identity in the light of the newly-introduced Article 4(2) TEU by the Treaty of Lisbon, which makes it explicit that national identity encompasses constitutional specificity. A number of questions are raised and discussed. For instance: How has the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) been adjudicating on issues pertaining to the constitutional identity of the Member States pre- and post-Lisbon? How far can Member States stretch the concept to avoid the tidal effect of EU law upon their legal systems? For the sake of clarity, two notions of constitutional identity are identified and presented in this article: One related to the CJEU’s case law, where ‘constitutional identity’ has been invoked by defending Member States as a qualified derogation from their EU law obligations (a ‘shield’) and another, inherent in the German Constitutional Court’s (BVerfG) use of ‘constitutional identity’ as a break to an unprecedented transfer of competences to the EU and a tool of judicial review of national implementation measures of secondary legislation (a sword). The arguments advanced hereafter suggest that the implications of identity retention as a ‘shield’ may not be far-reaching since the CJEU has, through a pragmatic use of the loyalty and proportionality principles, succeeded in reducing its effect to the bare minimum. On the other hand, as a judicial review mechanism, the German paradigm demonstrates that, as a ‘sword’, constitutional identity retention comprises, largely, a theoretical possibility. These assumptions aside, it is concluded that constitutional identity retention may provide both national judiciaries and legislatures with new opportunities to participate in trans-national constitutional development through monitoring and assessing the compatibility of the exercise of EU competence with the requirements of national constitutions.

Cases involving the posting of workers will inevitably involve international elements and therefore issues of private international law. Historically, it has been assumed that English employment law is territorial: in particular section 204 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that the provisions of the Act apply irrespective of the law applicable to the contract. This contribution examines this proposition through the perspective of private international law principles, and also considers the compatibility of section 204 with the private international law rules in the Posted Workers Directive and the new definition of overriding mandatory rules in the Rome I Regulation.

In this chapter I examine how the cross-border movement of companies may be affected by some tax rules and I consider the impact of EU law on such rules. The examination is in the context of the case law of the Court of Justice and the limited EU direct tax legislation. I assess how these affect the cross-border movement of companies as well as their investment strategies. I conclude by considering whether this is a satisfactory way of dealing with the issues. The contents of this chapter are based on materials available up to 1st March 2011.

Since the conferral of binding legal effect on the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Court of Justice has taken an active role in developing the Charter as the leading source of human rights rules in the EU legal order. While the Court has begun to clarify some important points relating to the Charter, a number of significant issues still need to be addressed.

The Treaty of Lisbon introduced an extension of locus standi for private claimants by amending Article 263(4) TFEU. The provision contains a new third variant for actions against ‘regulatory acts which do not entail implementing measures’. However, it is far from clear to what extent the existing framework has actually been reformed. The CJEU has not yet had the opportunity to define the term ‘regulatory act’. In our view, this term has to be interpreted narrowly. It merely encompasses non-legislative acts enacted under Articles 290 and 291 TFEU. Those subordinate legal acts are characterised by a lack of democratic legitimacy, which justifies a lower threshold for judicial review. Hence, the possibilities for an action for annulment remain limited for private applicants. Effective remedies against legal acts of EU law are provided primarily by the courts of the Member States. The tentative reforms brought by the Treaty of Lisbon did not change the decentralised structure of the EU’s judicial system.

Anyone familiar with French legal education will know that what a common lawyer would call the contents page to be found at the beginning (often in summary form) or at the end (often in detail) of a French textbook or monograph on law is more than a mere guide for browsers and readers. It forms le plan, that is to say the epistemological framework the intellectual importance of which is equal to the substance of the work. It is what endows the book with its scientific credibility and any thesis or textbook lacking a coherent cartesian plan will by definition lack intellectual credibility. But what of the other guide provided in many academic books, namely the index? Is this guide nothing but a guide, never to be allowed to aspire to an epistemological status like that accorded to le plan? Or is an index, with its strictly alphabetical ordering, capable of having an epistemological role?

The long-established contradictions of free movement law are caused by the implicit reference to two contradictory paradigms of economic integration. The first paradigm seeks to avoid the competition among private businesses being distorted by national regulations, therefore aiming at the creation of a ‘level playing field’ (regulatory neutrality paradigm). The second paradigm seeks to ensure the proper functioning of the process of competition among Member States, and accordingly aims at maximising the opportunities for ‘regulatory arbitrage’ (regulatory competition paradigm). In more detail, the tension between those two paradigms of economic integration results in three central nodes of internal market law: the eventuality of a positive harmonisation, the negative harmonisation conundrum, and the regulatory mobility dilemma. In sum, one (free movement) law is assigned the contradictory mission of ensuring the proper functioning of two competitive processes: the competition among private businesses (regulatory neutrality) and among Member States (regulatory competition).

This chapter considers European economic integration from the perspective of varieties of capitalism. It notes the main threats that integration potentially entails both for liberal and coordinated market economies, and assesses the likelihood of damage to the different models, in particular following the Lisbon Treaty. It is argued descriptively that both types of capitalism can continue to coexist in the European Union, and normatively that it is vital that the integration project is managed in a way that does not fundamentally endanger them.