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Face mask rules: do they really violate personal liberty?

June 2, 2021 / City Law Forum / 1 Comment

Gwilym David Blunt, City, University of London

This post is the second in a series of blog posts on COVID-19 and inequalities from a multidisciplinary and international perspective. A work-in-progress symposium on 9-10 June 2021 on the forthcoming edited collection tentatively titled as above is under contract with Bristol University Press sits within the Bristol Studies in Law and Social Justice Series.

Several hundred people assembled in London’s Hyde Park in July 2020 to protest rules making face masks mandatory in shops and supermarkets to help control the spread of COVID-19. This was not an isolated event. Similar protests have occurred in many places around the world in reaction to the prospect of “mask mandates” – especially in the United States.

The EU Perspective on Labour and Social Standards in the EU-UK TCA: Reality and Expectations

May 26, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Tamara Hervey

This blog post provides an early analysis of the ‘non-regression’ provisions on Labour and Social Standards in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). After considering the ‘non-regression’ provisions in the context of the TCA as a whole, it contrasts the provisions with measures of EU law. It then turns to elaborate the content of the provisions. Finally, some aspects of their enforcement are discussed.

Canada’s new model FIPA and UK-Canada FTA negotiations

May 20, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

David Collins

On the occasion of the UK’s ongoing re-negotiation of the placeholding UK-Canada Free Trade Continuity Agreement rolled over last year from the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU, it is useful to draw attention to Canada’s newly issued model Foreign Investment Promotion Agreement (FIPA). Upgraded from the 2014 version, the 2021 model FIPA sets out Canada’s starting asks for its trading partners in the field of investment – a key feature of modern Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as well as a vital contributor to the economies of both countries. In 2019, the inward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK from Canada was £20.0 billion accounting for 1.3% of the total UK inward FDI stock.

European Citizens’ Initiative on trade in goods originating in occupied territories

May 17, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Jed Odermatt

In July 2019, seven European citizens filed a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entitled “Ensuring Common Commercial Policy conformity with EU Treaties and compliance with international law”. The European Citizens’ Initiative is a procedure, introduced in the Lisbon Treaty, to allow EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU law and policy. Article 11(4) Treaty on European Union allows EU citizens to submit “any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.” The ECI proposal must fall within the powers of the European Commission. The Regulation on the European citizens’ initiative (ECI regulation) sets out the main parameters for the procedure. The Commission may register an initiative if “none of the parts of the initiative manifestly falls outside the framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties” (Article 6).

The Benevolent Hegemon? A Book Discussion of ‘The EU as a Global Regulator for Environmental Protection’ by Dr. Ioanna Hadjiyianni

May 7, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Eva Pander Maat

On 20 April 2021, a panel of esteemed experts convened to discuss the book ‘The EU as a Global Regulator for Environmental Protection’ by Dr. Ioanna Hadjiyianni. The Webinar was organised by the Institute for the Study of European Laws (ISEL) and Professor Elaine Fahey, the Jean Monnet Chair in Law and Transatlantic Relations at City, University of London, who also moderated the event. This blog post revisits key points raised during the webinar and summarizes its conclusions.

Hadjiyianni’s book applies a critical transnational lens to the EU’s regulatory power in global environmental governance. It focuses on Internal Environmental Measures with Extraterritorial Implications (IEMEIs): unilateral measures which regulate trade based on conduct which takes place beyond EU borders. The book evaluates IEMEIs from a legitimacy perspective. Whilst access to the EU market is technically optional, it often cannot easily be forgone by third country businesses. This yields IEMEIs significant coercive effects, which gives rise to external legitimacy gaps. These occur across three main fronts: accountability, participation and representation, and access to justice. The main objective of the book is to map the enabling and constraining role of the law in the legitimacy of IEMEIs, focusing on EU and WTO law. The book takes an impressively comprehensive and systemic approach to a pertinent phenomenon in EU law and global environmental governance. This rightfully led it to be shortlisted for the prestigious SLS Peter Birks Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2020. It is therefore unsurprising that Hadjiyianni’s book is praised by all discussants for its thoroughness and offered ample material for an engaging, multi-faceted discussion which could easily have continued far beyond the webinar.

Trump’s Facebook ban upheld – but the future of the oversight board is in doubt

May 6, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Elaine Fahey

Referred to by some as Facebook’s “supreme court”, the oversight board tasked with reversing or upholding Facebook’s content moderation decisions has ruled that the social media company’s ban of Donald Trump should be maintained.

The board upheld Facebook’s January 7 decision to ban then-President Trump from posting content on Facebook and Instagram, after his social media activity was partially blamed for inciting the violence at the January 6 Capitol riots, during which five people died. However, the board noted that indefinite suspensions were not described in Facebook’s content policies – and so the ban will be reviewed again in six months.

The “Multidimensional” Law of Facebook

April 23, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Giulio Kowalski

A lot has been said about Facebook being an incumbent digital platform threatening competition on the markets (and arguably much more remains to be said). However, the ‘law of Facebook’ incorporates different dimensions ‒ e.g., public, international, transnational, European, comparative ‒ that are at least as important as competition law and policy. It is with this premise in mind that the Jean Monnet Chair in Law & Transatlantic Relations, City Law School and the Institute for the Study of European Law (ISEL) at City Law School hosted a webinar to shed light on these further dimensions of the law of Facebook and discuss whether it can function as a blueprint to understand legal issues ‒ and engineer possible solutions ‒ concerning the law of big techs in general. Let’s delve into the central matters discussed by the panellists concerning the multidimensional law of Facebook.

Street Space and Taxis During the COVID-19 Pandemic

April 14, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

Lynne Townley and Tony Ostrin

The taxi or black cab has from time immemorial has been part of the London transport scene. They are permitted to use all available road space, including bus lanes. The current pandemic has motivated the Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL) to create a policy resulting in traffic plan and traffic orders limiting the amount of road space available for vehicles. The result of these orders has been to restrict taxis from using road space (including bus lanes) in two areas of central London that were previously available to them.

Malta: how the rule of law has been challenged by murder and corruption allegations

April 13, 2021 / City Law Forum / 0 Comments

John Stanton

When 11 people face court in Valletta, Malta, in coming weeks, the rule of law on the Mediterranean island will also be on trial. The defendants, who are facing charges relating to allegations of corrupt dealings, include Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff to the ex-prime minister, Joseph Muscat. Schembri was arrested and detained on March 20 on charges of corruption, money-laundering and “engaging in lucrative underhand business dealings”, according to press reports. His fellow defendants include various prominent business figures.