By: Fiona Parker,
on 8/30/2016
The Leave vote in the EU referendum presents several potential challenges for employers which are of far more immediate and practical importance than speculation about the future direction of employment law in a post-EU environment.
The post Employment law: Post-Brexit appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Fiona Parker,
on 4/26/2016
In June 2015, EU Regulation 2015/848 of 20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings entered into force. This Regulation reformed – or, to be more precise, recast – EC Regulation 1346/2000, in order to tackle in a much more modern way cross-border insolvency cases involving at least one Member State of the EU (except Denmark).
The post A new European Regulation on insolvency proceedings appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Fiona Parker,
on 4/12/2016
If you’ve been following the Brexit debate in the media, you no doubt will have noticed how European employment laws are frequently bandied around as the sort of laws that Britain could do without, thank you very much. As welcome as a giant cheesecake at the Weight Watchers Annual Convention, the European Working Time Directive is never far away from the lips of Brexiters.
The post Brexit and employment law: a bonfire of red tape? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Yasmin Coonjah,
on 4/9/2016
In early 2015, confidential documents were leaked to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper. The documents leaked came from the internal database of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm. Working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media organizations from around the world, the documents (which became known as the ‘Panama Papers’) were analysed and, on the 3 April 2016, media organizations around the world published their findings.
The post The ‘Panama Papers’ and corporate transparency: The UK perspective appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Fiona Parker,
on 1/26/2016
Although many EU IP lawyers are currently concentrating on the trade mark reforms, the Commission is quietly getting on with its study of the design protection system in Europe. The remit of the study is wide-ranging, but perhaps the most surprising issue that has arisen is whether design law in the EU should protect things that you can’t see.
The post Should design rights protect things you can’t see? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Yasmin Coonjah,
on 1/17/2016
The United Kingdom Parliament is currently in the pre-legislative scrutiny phase of a new Investigatory Powers Bill, which aims to “consolidate existing legislation and ensure the powers in the Bill are fit for the digital age.” It is fair to say this Bill is controversial with strong views being expressed by both critics and supporters of the Bill. Against this backdrop it is important to cut through the rhetoric and get to the heart of the Bill and to examine what it will do and what it will mean in terms of the legal framework for British citizens, and indeed for those overseas.
The post Finding proportionality in surveillance laws appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Fiona Parker,
on 12/1/2015
The stakes cannot be higher for the EU. Currently, the total public expenditure directed by the Member States in procuring goods, works and services accounts for over €1 trillion. Public procurement in the Member States is a highly fragmented and complex process.
The post The EU and public procurement law appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Fiona Parker,
on 10/27/2015
Following a preliminary reference made in the context of Seattle Genetics Inc. v Österreichisches Patentamt, the Court of Justice of the European Union has put an end to the uncertainty faced by both the innovative and the generic pharmaceutical industries regarding the duration of the effective patent protection afforded to medicinal products.
The post A European victory for the pharmaceutical industry appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice Leigh,
on 6/17/2015
What are the most common myths surrounding the laws of the European Union? We asked two experts, Phil Syrpis and Catherine Seville, to describe and combat some misconceptions. From the Maastricht Treaty to intellectual property law, here are some of the topics they addressed.
The post Dispelling myths about EU law appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 1/13/2015
In the Preface to the 3rd edition of Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), editor Professor Ingeborg Schwenzer notes:
“the CISG has enjoyed enduring success and continues to do so. Today, the Convention has 74 Contracting States. Most notably, on 19 June 2008, the Japanese parliament decided to adopt the Convention; the instrument of ratification was deposited on 1 July 2008 and the Convention came into force on 1 August 2009. Other important states such as Brazil, Turkey, and Portugal are expected to join the Convention in the near future.”
It is within this context that the University of Basel, the Swiss Association for International Law (SVIR/SSDI) and UNCITRAL are hosting a special conference which will mark 35 years of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), from 29th-30th January 2015. In this conference, special focus will be given to open issues in regard to the CISG’s application and any possible further harmonization and unification of contract law.
The range of speakers at the Conference includes the world’s leading scholars on the CISG and comparative law, including fellow Oxford author Dr Pascal Hachem, who will be speaking on ‘Extending the CISG: Beyond Sales Contracts’. Among the speakers are members and rapporteurs of the CISG Advisory Council. Other speakers include Professor Dr. H. Flechtner, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; Professor Dr. S. Han, professor of Civil Law in Tsinghua University School of Law (Beijing) and a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar visiting Harvard Law School and Professor Dr. B. Piltz, Partner of the law firm Ahlers & Vogel, Hamburg.
Other highlights from the conference programme include an economic analysis of the CISG, a focus on validity issues when extending the CISG and the future of unification of contract law. The conference dinner will be held at the Restaurant Safran Zunft, a location first documented in the 14th century.
The conference is hosted at the University of Basel in Switzerland, one of the leading universities in the country. Originally founded in in connection with the Council of Basel, it was officially opened in 1460, the deed of foundation having already been given in the form of a Papal bull in 1459 by Pope Pius II. The University of Basel was originally decreed to have four faculties—arts, medicine, theology and jurisprudence and The University Library of Basel has over three million books and writings and is the largest library in Switzerland.
Basel itself, Switzerland’s third largest city by population, is located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet. It has suburbs in France and Germany, and is situated in the north west of Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is an important cultural centre for Switzerland. The city houses many theatres and museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, which contains the world’s oldest publicly accessible art collection.
Oxford University Press is proud to be a Gold Partner of 35 Years CISG and Beyond. If you are attending keep an eye out for the Oxford University Press stand, where we’ll be offering a discount on our renowned contract law commentaries and conducting demonstrations of our new online product Oxford Legal Research Library: International Commercial Law, which offers online access to both Commentary on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and Global Sales and Contract Law. If you’d like more information about CISG and the Global Sales Law Project ahead of the Conference, you can also watch Ingeborg Schwenzer introduce the topic.
Featured image credit: HerbstMesse Basel, by Niki Georgiev. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
The post 35 years CISG and beyond appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Caitie-Jane Cook,
on 10/6/2014
In the second of our posts focusing on the Conservative’s proposed European Union ‘In/Out’ referendum, key legal figures and political commentators share their views on why Britain should stay in the European Union. Once finished, why not read the previous post on Why Britain should leave the European Union and decide which side has the more convincing argument?
* * * * *
What is best for Britain? That is the only question which both sides have been addressing in the “In/Out” debate in this country and to which they give different answers. Certainly that is a relevant question but it is not the only question which should be addressed. … We should also ask “what is best for Europe as a whole and also what is best for the world?”
One of the great achievements of the UK over the centuries has been the universalising, in part by example [and] in part by means of the European Convention on Human Rights, of its generally admired conceptions of human rights. … In consequence, the EU has these human rights as one of its foundation stones. … The steady increase of Member States of the EU and of candidate member states shows that many others value the EU and its commitment to human rights.
Systems of governance and substantive laws are not immutable and need changing from time to time. The UK should contribute in a positive fashion to these changes and to the continuing health of the EU.
– Sir Konrad Schiemann, former Judge, Court of Justice of the European Union
* * * * *
“One of the strongest reasons for staying in the EU is that quitting would be bad for our economy, as we would lose full access to the single market. Eurosceptics have tried to counter this argument by saying we could copy Norway, Switzerland, or Turkey. The snag is that none of these is a good model: Norway has access to the single market but has to follow its rules without a vote on them; Switzerland’s banks don’t enjoy access to the single market unless they relocate to places inside the EU like London; and Turkey doesn’t have access for services, which account for 80% of our economy.
“As Eurosceptics have come to realise the weaknesses of these models, they have employed a new argument: Britain is a special case. We are bigger than Norway and Switzerland, and richer than Turkey. We are, therefore, in a position to cut a better deal with the EU than any of them. Clout is important – and we certainly have more of it than Norway, Switzerland, or Turkey. But the problem with this argument is that the EU has more clout than us. Its economy would be six times our size.”
– Hugo Dixon, Editor-at-large, Reuters News, and author of The In/Out Question: Why Britain should stay in the EU and fight to make it better.
* * * * *
Before we run for the European exit we need to properly weigh up the alternatives. Those who want to do a ‘runner’ claim that the world is about to open their doors to our goods and services and that our influence will increase. I would love to see evidence of how easy it will be to swap our “disastrous” relationship with Europe for such a harmonious set of alliances with every other country around the world – as long as they are not European!
For my part I am greedy for the UK, not cautious – I want EU PLUS. I want the 500 million customers that the EU offers PLUS new trading partners and new export opportunities from across the globe.
We need have no identity crisis about our membership of Europe or feel that we are in any way diminished by sitting at the top table of the largest trading bloc in the world. We just have a lot of work ahead to help shape a new and ambitious Europe that shares our optimistic, confident, and outward-looking attitude and delivers true benefits to the British people.
– Laura Sandys, MP for South Thanet and founder, European Mainstream
* * * * *
I believe that all the most serious issues facing the world today are essentially international problems, and that none of these problems can be solved unless we continue to develop the international legal order at every possible level.
In my own field, one can refer to the problem of climate change or global warming, and the pressing need for more effective methods of control of greenhouse gas emissions. … Problems [such as these] are inherently transnational in nature, and all present insuperable challenges to individual national governments.
It is indisputable that in the European Union we have the single most advanced and successful example of an international legal order which has yet been established. … Unless we are ostentatiously to turn our backs on the world’s most serious problems, it is absolutely essential that we continue to participate in and to support this outstanding international development. Only in this way can the long-term interests of our country and our people be protected.
– Stephen Hockman QC, 6 Pump Court Chambers
* * * * *
It is unsurprising that the financial crisis should have brought back to the fore concerns about the very design of the EU’s institutional structure and issues of democracy deficit, on which there is already an extensive literature.
This is however matched by an equal dearth of literature concerning constitutional responsibility of Member States for the status quo. … It is noteworthy that the discourse concerning democracy deficit is normally presented as a critique of the EU. The EU is of course not blameless in this respect, but nor are the Member States, viewed collectively and individually. The present disposition of EU institutional power is the result of successive Treaties in which the principal players have been the Member States.
Member States bear responsibility for the choices that they have made, individually and collectively, in shaping EU decision-making. Thus insofar as there is a democratic deficit of the kind considered above responsibility cannot simply be ‘offloaded’ by the Member States to the EU. Member States cannot carp about deficiencies of EU decision-making as if they were unconnected with the architecture thus created.
– Paul Craig, Professor of Law, University of Oxford, and author of The Lisbon Treaty, EU Law: Texts, Cases, and Materials, and EU Administrative Law.
“Europe today is under threat from all sides”
* * * * *
Europe today is under threat from all sides. … To want to leave the European Union at such a time seems perverse. And to what end do the Europhobes – I use the word advisedly for we are all Eurosceptics to a degree – demand Britain’s exit? To wrest back national sovereignty from Brussels. Yet sovereignty is a chimera, a mirage, a will o’ the wisp. It is like a man lost in the desert: he has total control over what he does, complete freedom of action – yet he is powerless.
When he was European Commissioner, Leon Brittan said in 1989: “The concept of total sovereignty is, frankly, a dangerous delusion. Instead you have to ask on a pragmatic basis: how can I most effectively achieve what I want for my country? Sometimes the answer will be to take action at the national level. At other times it may be best to reach multilateral agreements. But there will be occasions when the right, long-term answer is to pool sovereignty with others, in order paradoxically, to achieve an objective which may be of paramount national (ital.) importance.” He was right then and his argument holds good today.
– Sue Cameron, columnist, The Daily Telegraph
* * * * *
Continued membership of the EU for Scotland (as part of the United Kingdom) remains a critical issue. Indeed, anecdotally at least, there appears to be the sort of broad consensus amongst Scottish businesses, the public sector, and civil society which has been so markedly absent from the Scottish independence debate. That consensus is firmly pro-European.
The real world considerations of a smaller economic entity such as Scotland, which is geographically remote from many of its key markets and exports proportionately more than its larger neighbour, revolve around reducing, not creating, barriers to trade.
Direct engagement with the EU operates alongside a dynamic relationship with Westminster which has seen almost annual alteration of the boundary between those areas reserved to London and those devolved to Edinburgh. … What becomes clear is not that the European Union is an unalloyed good, or that the Westminster Parliament is an unalloyed bad. The question is whether, in sum, membership of the European Union is a ‘good’ to be preserved despite its imperfections. I’ve no doubt it is.
– Christine O’Neill, Chairman, Brodies LLP
The post Why Britain should stay in the European Union appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alice,
on 5/1/2014
European Union (EU) enlargement is both a policy and a process describing the expansion of the EU to neighbouring countries. The process of EU enlargement, first with the creation of the European Economic Community and, later, with that of the European Union, has resulted in today’s EU membership of 28 member states.
EU membership is open to any European country that will satisfy the conditions for accession as set out in Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The position in EU law of countries aspiring to become member states of the EU has been well covered in multiple publications throughout the years.
As a corollary to the ‘right of accession’ of states to the European Union, the EU Treaties have recently provided for the member states’ right to withdraw from the European Union. This right has been enshrined in Article 50 TEU, formally introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. The formal recognition of the member states’ right to withdraw warrants, in itself, special attention as regards its scope and the concrete consequences of its exercise, all the more so since there are, today, signals that this newly attributed right could be exercised in the foreseeable future.
The newly attributed right of withdrawal opens up new lines of enquiry relevant to other distinct scenarios, with no less of an impact on the EU’s composition. One such scenario is that of the separation or ‘secession’ of part of the territory of an EU member state, motivated by a desire for national independence. Recent months have seen a flurry of activity and academic debate on the likely implications of secession of part of the territory of certain member states, followed by the creation of newly independent states.
While secession within the European Union may be within the realm of the possible, several questions spring to mind when reviewing such a scenario, starting with the future of a newly created independent state in the EU. Would this future lie ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the European Union? This would be up to the newly created state to determine, as a sovereign state in international law. In case the newly created state decides to tie up its future to the one of the other members of the European family, the next question would be ‘how’ this is to be achieved? As newly created states wishing to join the EU would originate in an existing (rump) member state they would be familiar with the various EU principles, rules and procedures. Taking into consideration the ‘roots’ of a newly created state within the European family and its previous compliance with EU policies and practices (albeit in a different legal form and capacity) could an ‘automatic’ right to EU accession for the newly created state be envisaged? And, even if there is no such right of automatic accession to the European Union, what would be the parameters for an eventual ‘internal’ enlargement of the EU? To what extent would this differ from the stated policy and process of EU enlargement as enshrined in Article 49 TEU? The debate is on-going in various member states, while views on the matter have also been expressed at the European level.
These are only a few of the very fundamental and valid points raised by a secession scenario within the European Union. Many more questions spring to mind regarding, in particular, the future of the people living in the newly created states. Their people would normally find themselves outside the territorial scope of the EU, even if for a limited period of time only, with all the implications that this will have with respect to their rights as EU citizens. It is clearly in the interest of such citizens that their rights deriving from EU citizenship are maintained and/or protected during any transitional period from independence to full EU membership, so that they do not end-up being treated as third country nationals would. Is it at all possible to ensure the continuing enjoyment of their rights as (former) EU citizens? But this is yet another story.
Phoebus Athanassiou and Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou are the authors of “EU Accession from Within?—An Introduction” (available to read for free for a limited time) in the Yearbook of European Law. Phoebus Athanassiou is Senior Legal Counsel with the European Central Bank, specializing on EU financial law and issues of relevance to the ECB and EMU. He holds a PhD and an LLM from King’s College, London, and an LLB from Queen Mary, London. He is a Member of the Editorial Boards of the ECB Legal Working Papers Series and of the International In-house Counsel Journal. He is the author of Hedge Fund Regulation in the EU (Kluwer, 2009), and the editor of the Research Handbook on Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Alternative Investments (Edward Elgar, 2012). Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law of the University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, specialising in EU constitutional law and governance, EU integration and EU external relations. She holds a PhD and an LLM from the University of Leicester, a First Class LLB from the University of Paris and a BA in English and German for lawyers from the international language school I.S.I.T in Paris. Dr Shaelou has written extensively in internationally refereed publications on multiple aspects of EU law, including related to Cyprus. She is the author of The EU and Cyprus: principles and strategies of full integration (vol. 3, Studies in EU External Relations, Brill/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, 2010) and of ‘Market Freedoms, EU fundamental rights and public order: views from Cyprus’ (2011) 30(1) Yearbook of European Law 298.
The Yearbook of European Law seeks to promote the dissemination of ideas and provide a forum for legal discourse in the wider area of European law. It is committed to the highest academic standards and to providing informative and critical analysis of topical issues accessible to all those interested in legal studies. It reflects diverse theoretical approaches towards the study of law.
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The post The ‘internal’ enlargement of the European Union – is it possible? appeared first on OUPblog.
