Category: European Union (page 1 of 3)

A watershed moment, for Strasbourg and our human rights

By Professor Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, Head of Department, The City Law School

Once again, we are confronted with the politicisation of the European Court of Human Rights. But at the highest political level, and not just in the UK, this time. Nine European governments have issued a joint letter where they express the wish to ‘launch a new and open-minded conversation about the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights’ (in relation to immigration), explaining they want to ‘restore the right balance’ and that they will work together to further this ambition.

Credit: Council of Europe

The Italian and Danish PMs are leading on this initiative, with Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland co-signing the joint letter. Interestingly, the UK is not one of the signatories, when it has arguably been the member of the Council of Europe that has been making the most (deafening, at times) noise about its dissatisfaction with modern interpretations of the Convention and its willingness to moderate the effect of the ECHR in the UK if not to withdraw from the Convention altogether.

The letter starts with the co-signatories reaffirming their ‘firm belief’ in ‘European values, the rule of law and human rights’, their commitment to ‘a rule-based international order’, ‘the inviolable dignity of the individual’ and ‘role of multilateral institutions’. It continues with strong statements about the signatories being ‘leaders of societies that safeguard human rights’, for whom these ‘rights and values […] are both crucial and fundamental and […] constitute cornerstones of [their] democratic societies’. You can sense a ‘but’ coming (in the letter) at this point. ‘It is necessary to start a discussion about how the international conventions match the challenges that we face today’, points out the letter, going on the reverse on the ‘firm belief’ in everything that preceded this observation. ‘What was once right might not be the answer of tomorrow’, and the ‘the world has changed fundamentally since many of our ideas were conceived in the ashes of the great wars’, we read next. These enigmatic proclamations about our world take concrete shape and the focus is finally placed on what has motivated this letter when we are then told that ‘we now live in a globalized world where people migrate across borders on a completely different scale’, that ‘irregular migration has contributed significantly to the immigration to Europe’ and that some migrants have ‘chosen not to integrate, isolating themselves in parallel societies and distancing themselves from our fundamental values of equality, democracy and freedom’, while others ‘have chosen to commit crimes’. In other words, the letter offers legal migration, illegal migration, and failure of integration policies, including where they manifest themselves through the actions of criminal foreign nationals, as a diagnosis of what has fundamentally changed in our world, before suggesting that the remedy is something to do with the ECtHR, more specifically ‘a need to look at how the European Court of Human Rights has developed its interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights’, since the  Court ‘has extended the scope of the Convention too far as compared with the original intentions behind the Convention, thus shifting the balance between the interests which should be protected’.

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Book launch: ‘EU Trade and Investment Treaty-Making Post-Lisbon: Moving Beyond Mixity’

By Cheryl Dine

On Monday 31st March, 2025, City Law School welcomed Dr. Gesa Kübek to formally launch her book ‘EU Trade and Investment Treaty-Making Post-Lisbon: Moving Beyond Mixity’. This book launch was a public event that brought together EU, trade and investment law academics to explore the evolving landscape of EU trade and investment agreements in the post-Lisbon era.

Dr. Kübek’s book critically examines the evolution of EU treaty-making following the Lisbon Treaty, particularly the shift away from mixed agreements – where both the EU and its member states share competence. In her book, she argues that the EU is increasingly asserting exclusive competence over trade agreements, reshaping the legal and political dynamics of bilateral trade and investment treaty making. According to Dr. Kübek, “mixity in the field of trade and investment has become a matter of substance” as opposed to Heliskoski’s (2001) traditional view of mixity as a “procedural choice”.

During the book launch, Dr. Kübek explored how the practice of mixity has evolved over time. Fast forward to the 2020s, the notion of ‘mixity’ seems to involve deeper substantive considerations, including political, legal, and constitutional complexities. One of the key takeaways from Dr. Kübek’s analysis is that there is a growing tension between EU institutions and its member states in regards to the division of powers in external trade relations. For instance, Belgium’s decentralised constitutional structure, which adds another layer of complexity to the mixed procedure calling for a substantive design in EU’s recent treaty-making.

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Reimagining Prosperity – Toward a new Imaginary of Law and Political Economy in the EU

Conclusions from Prof Marija Bartl’s presentation at the ISEL City Law School about her new book “Reimagining Prosperity – Toward a new Imaginary of Law and Political Economy in the EU”

By Laura Vialon

On the 20th of March Marija Bartl, Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam, came to City Law School to present her new book on prosperity in the EU which came out in November last year as open access, available on Cambridge Core. The book argues that a clear imaginary for a shared prosperity in the EU is needed (again), while at the same some efforts in that regard have been already made, attempting to leave neoliberalism behind. For showing that EU policy is becoming “thicker” again, Professor Bartl analysed a variety of important policy fields – consumption, technology, industrial policy and corporate policy.

Professor Bartl passionately and eloquently guided the audience through her three main theses that (1) democracies need prosperity. Prosperity for Bartl means neither economic growth or mass consumption, but a “credible route to material and social basis of a good life” for the current and future generations. We need to have trust in this better future, this is what holds societies together and this trust has been eroded from the 1990’s onwards and heavily crushed after the 2008 financial crisis. Prosperity has become more concentrated in the hands of the few and trust in democracy and its institutions dwindled.

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The evolving jurisdiction of the General Court of the EU – Conclusions from the City Law School’s ISEL Winter Lecture of Judge Damjan Kukovec of the EU General Court

By Vasiliki Verykaki, PhD Researcher at the City Law School

The European Union’s legal and constitutional landscape is undergoing a remarkable transformation, as highlighted by Judge Damjan Kukovec in a thought-provoking lecture on 28 November at City Law School. At the heart of these changes lies the EU’s assertion of autonomy in determining its legal standards and the evolving role of its judicial and regulatory institutions. Judge Kukovec’s insights provided a thorough analysis into the evolving influence of EU agencies and the complex relationship between EU and international law, shedding light on key developments reshaping the EU’s legal framework.

He first asserted that EU law, as a sui generis system, relies on mutual trust among authorities for functionality. Jurisdiction over customs law, VAT, and passenger rights shifted from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to the General Court (GC) to alleviate ECJ’s caseload and leverage GC’s capacity. Also, traditionally, EU agencies have included independent Boards of Appeal (BoAs) that serve as a preliminary stage before cases are escalated to the GC. This arrangement signifies a shift in the jurisdiction, as the option of an appeal against decisions of several specified BoAs at certain agencies is effectively being reduced. In the future, the GC will regularly be the ‘last resort’ in these matters. This structural evolution highlights the growing importance of EU agencies in resolving significant legal and regulatory matters, shaping a new constitutional order.

Moreover, in the landmark Kadi judgments (C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P), the ECJ emphasised the EU’s autonomy from international law, adding that protecting fundamental rights is central to the EU legal order. Accordingly, all Union measures must align with these fundamental rights. On a similar note, the Judge summarised the Case C-457/18, Slovenia v. Croatia, where the Court ruled that Slovenia’s claim, based on Croatia’s failure to recognise an arbitral award, involved an international law dispute rather than EU law. Despite some links to Croatia, the Court did not consider the issues having a Union dimension to exercise jurisdiction.

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Insights from the Conference on Trade Negotiations, Trade Policy, and Law-Making in an Era of Soft Law

By: Nouf Ali S AlGazlan

With a new era come new challenges. So, what are the challenges of the rise of ‘soft law’ in lieu of trade agreements? The conference, organised by Professor Elaine Fahey at City Law School entitled “Trade Negotiations, Trade Policy and Law-Making in an Era of Soft Law” explored not only the possible challenges of such non-binding agreements, but also their effectiveness, impact, and most importantly, whether the EU is emerging as a leader or laggard in this new era. Below is a summary of each panel’s discussions, where experts including academics, practitioners and think-tanks came together to discuss such issues.

 

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City-EIAG Seminar

REBUILDING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UK AND THE EU

A Security Cooperation Pact and Other Ideas for Strengthening the Relationship

City Law School

28 February 2024 at 6pm

The City Law School, City, University of London and the European and International Analysts Group (EIAG), supported by Henderson Chambers, invite you to a seminar to discuss a possible security pact between the UK and the EU and other ideas for strengthening the post-Brexit relationship.

A background paper to the seminar by Sir Julian King, and published by the EIAG, can be found here.

The world has changed since Brexit. Security and defence challenges have become more urgent and more diverse. Russia is waging a relentless war of conquest against Ukraine and there are grounds for uncertainty as to the long-term commitment of the United States to European defence. Add to that, increasing instability in the Middle East, spilling over into the interruption of the economically vital trade-route through Suez, and an increasingly aggressive international stance by the world’s authoritarian powers. Taking all this into account, the security situation in Europe is arguably more perilous than at any time since the end of World War II.

The UK and the EU face the same challenges, and could face them with more confidence together. With Brexit behind us, how should the UK set about re-framing its relationship with its neighbourhood, as one rooted in and justified by the reality of today’s challenges?

The seminar will explore the prospects for developing a new security pact between the UK and the EU, and other practical opportunities there may be for moving towards a closer and more structured relationship in the future.

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Will the UK’s proposed Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism violate WTO law?

Professor David Collins, City Law School

Last week Jeremy Hunt, the UK Chancellor, announced that the UK would pursue implementation of its own Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The EU adopted its own CBAM which is due to go into effect gradually over the next few years – it is currently in an information-gathering stage.

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NextGenerationEU: EU’s Trojan horse for a silent constitutional transition?

Christos Karetsos, City Law School

On the 2 October 2023 at City, University of London, Institute for the Study of European Laws (ISEL), Professor Peter L. Lindseth and Professor Päivi Leino-Sandberg presented their research project in progress, titled ‘‘Beyond ‘As If’ Constitutionalism: Revenue, Borrowing, and Spending in the New Regime of European Integration.’’ This blog post outlines the key ideas of the presentation and the discussion that followed.

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The ‘sidelining’ of the European Parliament from the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC): TTC(s) as post-Democracy Divas or Disasters?

Professor Elaine Fahey, Institute for the Study of European Law, City Law School, City, University of London

The EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC)

Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council (TTC) has been set up quickly by the European Union (EU) with the US at the outset of the US Biden administration. It is not a trade negotiation and does not adhere to any specific Article 218 TFEU procedure, although it has many signature ‘EU’ characteristics. The TTC has high-minded goals to ‘solve’ global challenges on trade and technology with its most significant third country cooperating partner.  Yet it is notably not the only recent Council proposed by the EU- there is also a new EU-India Trade and Technology Council. These new Councils represent a new modus operandi for the EU to engage with ‘complex’ partners, comprising executive to executive engagement, meeting agency counterparts regularly in close groups in an era of EU trade policy deepening its stakeholder and civil society ambit overall. The TTC has a vast range of policy-making activities, traversing many areas of EU law.  Their precise selection and future is difficult to understand in EU regional trade and data policy, seemingly pivoting, like US trade law, to executive-led soft law.

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Facebook/Meta Oversight Board: International and Regional Law Applications

Giulia Alves Maia

The Facebook / Meta Oversight Board (OB) is one of the most novel developments in law and governance in recent years. The Oversight Board has ignited a major debate about its character, form, operation, and effects. It has been modelled as a “Facebook Supreme Court”, and its structure and style of its reasoning, as well as its use of precedent, give the appearance that the OB operates in a similar way to a court. On 26 April 2023, City Law School hosted a hybrid event entitled The Facebook/Meta Oversight Board: International and Regional Law Applications to discussion these and other issues.

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