Editor's Note

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Volume 18 - p. 417

Europe’s Raison d’être?

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Authors: G. De Búrca

Volume 18 - p. 418

Article Reviews

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Authors: A. Vassiliou, S. Grundmann, N. Rinaldi, M. Brus, J. Kinghan, K. Pawłowicz, C. Godt

Volume 18 - p. 421

The European Union and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Story of Exclusive and Shared Competences

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Authors: L. Waddington

Volume 18 - p. 431

Inhoud: The signature and conclusion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by the European Community (now European Union) marks a significant step forward in the protection of human rights by the EU. Whilst the ...EU has become a party to international treaties in the past, this is the first such accession to a human rights treaty. As a consequence, the conclusion of the CRPD by the EU raises many interesting questions, and the path to be followed by the EU in identifying which Convention obligations it is bound by, or should act on, and which obligations fall primarily within the responsibility of the Member States, is, as yet, untrod. This article is a first attempt to examine some of those issues and, specifically, to reflect on what factors will determine whether EU action to implement the Convention would be appropriate in those many areas that fall within the shared competence of the EU and the Member States.hide

Epistemological Considerations in Private Law: Exploring Taxonomical Structures in the Common Law, Civil Law and Beyond

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Authors: S. Law

Volume 18 - p. 454

Inhoud: This paper aims to further the classification discourse by examining the importance and function of taxonomical structures in private law. The paper begins by considering the extent to which it is possible to develop, establish and maintain a class...ificatory scheme that constitutes a genuine reflection of the law and more generally, the value in searching for such coherence in law. The discourse developed within the paper is based on an assumption that there is a significant need for taxonomy, both within and beyond the boundaries of national law. This paper will introduce some of the issues which are of particular relevance at both the national level, through a consideration of taxonomy and classification in the development of the civil and the common legal traditions, and the transnational level, through an analysis of the attempts to develop legal taxonomy within the context of European private law (examining in particular, the Draft Common Frame of Reference).hide

Religious Displays at Public Schools – Courts, Crucifixes and Masters of Identities

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Authors: M. Zhurnalova-Juppunov

Volume 18 - p. 479

Inhoud: This contribution compares the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Lautsi v. Italy with the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the Classroom Crucifix case. An examination of... the way that the courts dealt with the common issues of state neutrality in education, parents’ rights to direct the religious education of their children, students’ right to religious freedom, as well as of the consistency of the rulings with relevant case law, reveals that the ECtHR’s Grand Chamber rendered a judgment open to criticism on a number of grounds. It erroneously conflated state action interfering with the applicant’s rights with the exercise of some ‘collective’ rights and liberties. The mis-characterization of the crucifix as a ‘passive symbol’ led the ECtHR to trivialize or disregard the effects of the crucifix on dissenting students and the state neutrality mandate in public education. Finally the judgment is not consistent with the relevant case law of the Court and the application of the doctrine of the margin of appreciation has served to weaken its role as Europe’s ‘ fundamental rights protector’, seeming to be a means through which the Court has gracefully given in to ‘popular sentiment’. The contribution concludes by offering a ‘pluralist approach’ as a legislative framework for regulating the display of religious symbols in public schools.hide

Transforming Shields into Swords: The VEBIC Judgment, Adequate Judicial Protection Standards and the Emergence of Procedural Heteronomy in EU Law

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Authors: P. Van Cleynenbreugel

Volume 18 - p. 511

Inhoud: The Court of Justice’s VEBIC judgment obliges national competition authorities to be involved in appellate judicial proceedings against a decision they adopted, even when these authorities act as first instance judges in adopting those decisions. T...he judgment significantly diminishes Member States’ autonomy in the organization of competition law enforcement. It also affects the scope of the general principle of national procedural autonomy. Rather than simply relying on the classical procedural autonomy test, VEBIC demonstrates a preference for judicial protection standards aimed at assessing the adequateness of national procedural rules. These standards, at first sight, facilitate procedural law convergence, but their potentially unbridled application also enables the unaccountable widening of EU involvement in national procedural systems and ensuing critiques of judicial activism. This article therefore proposes a framework of understanding based on procedural heteronomy to structure the Court’s adoption of procedural standards. Procedural heteronomy delineates the Court’s potentially new stance in procedural law and structures it within a more general procedural ius commune framework that favours the coexistence of and interaction among EU and national standards of adequate procedure.hide

Metamorphosis of Functionalism - or Back to Basics?

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Authors: J. Husa

Volume 18 - p. 548

Taking Functionalism Seriously: On the Bright Future of a Contested Method.

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Authors: J. M. Smits

Volume 18 - p. 554

Preliminary References to the European Court of Justice.

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Authors: M. Broberg, N. Fenger

Volume 18 - p. 559