Law

This work approaches the issue of democratic deficit from the angle of accountability, seen in contemporary society as an essential element of democratic government. It looks at differing understandings of the concept in the Member States and at various techniques — political, legal, and managerial — by which accountability can be assured. These include the Parliament as well as national parliaments but extend to less familiar institutions, such as the European Court of Auditors.

This book provides an analysis of the administration of the European Union and the legal framework within which that administration operates. It examines the multifarious approaches, techniques, and structures of public administration in order to systematize and assess the solutions they offer to political, social, and economic problems. The legal framework of administration is examined from the standpoint of how it meets the demands of specific policy objectives established by democratically accountable decision-makers. Administrative law structures and many of its underlying principles have developed in an evolutionary and isolated manner in each policy area. While aware of the diversity of specific areas, this book takes an overarching approach, setting out the common rules and principles that constitute the general body of EU administrative law. By integrating the disciplines of political and administrative science, and administrative law, the book offers a rich explanation and critique of the complex executive framework of the EU.

The prominence of the Advocate General is one of the most distinctive and controversial features of the European Court of Justice. The Advocate General and EC Law is the first comprehensive study of the Advocate General and his role in the development of EC Law. In Part I, the book examines the history of the role, the questions over its future, and the role's importance in the procedures of the Court. In Part II, the book analyses the contribution of some of the most influential Advocates General to the development of specific aspects of Community law, including Francis Jacobs on intellectual property, Walter van Gerven on discrimination, and Jean Pierre Warner on competition procedure. In Part III, the book explores the contributions of a range of Advocates General to specific principles of Community Law, including state liability, direct effect, and the concept of citizenship. This book offers a unique perspective on politics of the European Court of Justice — one of the driving forces behind closer European integration.

The 1999 Treaty of Amsterdam expanded significantly the legal competence of the European Union for combatting discrimination. Traditionally, EU law has concentrated on discrimination between women and men and discrimination on the grounds of EU nationality. However, Article 13 EC created a new legal space for the Union to regulate discrimination on the ground of racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation. This book aims to improve our understanding of the evolution of European Union law in the field. To this end, it considers the development of EU law and policy in respect of two specific grounds of discrimination — race and sexual orientation. It provides an account of the debate within the institutions and Member States, analysis of relevant case law from the Court of Justice, and coverage of the anti-discrimination directives adopted in 2001. The book further considers the relationship between national and European anti-discrimination law. A survey of national anti-discrimination statutes is presented in order to identify the variety of legal traditions that exist in this field. The diversity of these legal cultures impacts significantly upon the scope for and nature of EU anti-discrimination legislation. The author concludes by reviewing the principle factors that have influenced the evolution of EU anti-discrimination law and applying this to an analysis of the prospects for future development.

This book addresses two problems surrounding the interpretation and application of Article 81 of the EC Treaty: what is competition and how does Article 81 ensure that competition is protected? After over forty years of application and a period of modernisation, decentralisation, and reflection, it is possible to understand Article 81 and what it seeks to achieve. The book's aim is to reveal the intellectual order and rational structure underlying the law so as to enable the reader to understand Article 81 in a clear and rigorous manner. This is done by breaking Article 81 down into its constituent elements and examining the function that each element serves. Arguing that jurisdiction rests on a public/private distinction, both the substantive and the justificatory rules are cast to generate obligations appropriate for private actors to perform. Actors and activities falling within the scope of Article 81 are subject to the substantive element prohibiting contrived reductions in output. Since output reduction can co-exist with cost reduction/innovation, and given that these latter features are desirable, cost reduction and innovation operate to justify infringement of the substantive obligation. Thus this book argues that output, cost and innovation are the only legitimate issues in an Article 81 analysis. It is in this sense that the monograph is concerned with the boundaries of Article 81 EC.

Governments spend huge amounts of money buying goods and services from the private sector. How far should their spending power be affected by social policy? Arguments against the practice are often made by economists — on the grounds of inefficiency, and lawyers — on the grounds of free competition and international economic law. Buying Social Justice analyses how governments in developed and developing countries use their contracting power in order to advance social equality and reduce discrimination, and argues that this approach is an entirely legitimate and efficient means of achieving social justice. The book looks at the different experiences of a range of countries, including the UK, the USA, and South Africa. It also examines the impact of international and regional regulation of the international economy, and questions the extent to which the issue of procurement policy should be regulated at the national, European or international levels. The role of EC and WTO law in mediating the tensions between the economic function of procurement and the social uses of procurement is discussed, and the outcomes of controversies concerning the legitimacy of the integration of social values into procurement are analysed. Buying Social Justice argues that European and international legal regulation of procurement has become an important means of accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative in both the social and economic uses of procurement.

The EU legal order sits above a diverse mix of 27 national legal systems, with some 23 different languages. Amongst such diversity, how can the unity and coherence of the European legal system be guaranteed? Is there a common understanding between lawyers from different national backgrounds as to the meaning and application of EU law? In addressing these issues the idea of ‘common concepts’ has played a crucial role. It is argued that the unity of the system is guaranteed by the consistent application of certain core principles shaping the law. Believers in common concepts argue that there is a relatively clear, shared, and accepted framework of ideas, providing an understanding of the system that is ultimately unified in spite of all apparent divergence. Sceptics hold that there is no such framework; ‘common concepts’ turn out to be additional sources of misunderstanding, confusion and, subsequently, legal divergence. According to a third thesis, there is indeed no common conceptual core, but the necessary unity and coherence of EU law can be articulated and even reinforced through the use of divergent concepts. The contributors to this collection of essays address these issues from different disciplinary perspectives — legal sociology, linguistics, comparative law, European legal scholarship, legal theory, and practical experience. The research group focused on the application of two general themes: the protection of rights and judicial discretion. In addition to the thematic research, case studies from core policy sectors are featured, including energy regulation and social policy.

In almost all fields of cooperation that are covered by the EC Treaty, the formal competence to adopt legislation has been assigned to the Council (which must normally collaborate with the European Parliament), and in order to separate powers, the formal competence to prepare the necessary proposals (the right to initiate legislation), has been assigned to the European Commission. Over the years, however, it has become clear that the reality is far more complex. This book examines the fact that the Council is now passing an increasing part of the responsibility for adopting legislation to the Commission, subject to the requirement that it has to collaborate with a vast number of committees that consist of representatives of the various national administrations. This is known as comitology. Comitology provides the Council and national governments with a mechanism for controlling the Commission, and so comitology is often thought to manifest a conflict of interests. The book argues that, despite much support in principle for this assumption, in practice comitology does not give rise to the kinds of conflicts many expect or fear. It contends that in fact comitology appears to be a fruitful cooperation between the national administrations and the Commission. The book explains how and why comitology has developed, explores the nature of comitology and examines its present and future place in the legal order of the European Union.

This book is the first of a two volume treatise on the law of non-contractual obligations. The result of an attempt to discover the common elements of the law of torts of all the member states of the European Union, it is founded on the belief that the approximation of European laws should not be left to the directives and regulations of Brussels alone. The book analyses the relevant court rulings and academic writings of all the jurisdictions of the European Union to distil a European common law of torts. The material covered in volume one includes: the areas of application of tort law and its boundaries with contract, property, criminal and constitutional law; the elements of liability under the general clauses of the European civil codes and the more specific torts of the common law. Further topics include: strict liability, liability for other persons, animals and premises; multiple tortfeasors; and an account of European Union and Council of Europe attempts to harmonise the less coherent areas of tort law.