One law to rule them all? The reach of EU data protection law after the Google v CNIL case

Google v CNIL is, arguably, one of the landmark cases of EU data protection law and it has been an important development regarding its territorial reach. The judgment's findings in this regard have been controversial and have led to much discussion about their legitimacy and potential repercussions. This paper examines two aspects of this case. First, it considers the holdings of this judgment regarding the global application of EU law in relation to international law and sovereignty. This article argues that though EU decision-makers might have a degree of ‘data imperialism’ in their thinking, this judgment is not at odds with neither international law nor sovereignty. Second, the paper examines the methodology of the Court and the role it accorded to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU– an aspect that many commentators overlook. In this regard, I argue that the Court's methodology was problematic and that it failed to duly consider the role of the Charter, thus fragmenting EU law.     

Equal before the law?

This article reviews empirically the relationship between politicians and decisions to prosecute or not to prosecute businesspeople who are suspected of fraud and of complicity in the supply of arms to Iraq, within the context of (a) conventional ideas about impartiality of the administration of law; and (b) the politics of bureaucratic survival. It discusses some key difficulties in ascertaining “what happened” and relative culpability in serious fraud trials, and the personal interest-inspired factors that can influence testimony. It concludes that in the UK, there is relative autonomy in decision-making in serious fraud cases, but that in “politically sensitive areas” such as the supply of arms to Iraq, there has been overt interference on purported “public interest” grounds with the information made available to the defence and even to the prosecution itself. It notes that without access to the grounds for decisionsnot to prosecute, their “purely legal” justification is difficult to challenge, and this is of most social significance where members of social elites are concerned. It concludes by addressing some difficulties in producing procedural models which provide genuine accountability for white-collar prosecutions and non-prosecutions in different countries.     

Student-led law reviews: what every UK law school needs?

In the United States (US) student-run law reviews have long offered students the opportunity to develop their skills as editors and members of a publication team and to engage with new legal research. With law ordinarily taught as a three-year postgraduate degree, these reviews are normally staffed by a postgraduate editorial team. Similar efforts in the United Kingdom (UK) have largely been short-lived. Some venerable academic journals, such as the Cambridge Law Journal, started their lives as student-centred projects, but academics soon assumed control of the process because of the variable quality of undergraduate editing. This false start proved difficult to recover from, but a spate of newly founded student law reviews in the last decade suggests that these publications have increasing traction in UK legal education. This article evaluates the challenges and potential benefits of these efforts to translate US practice into UK law schools in light of the experience of creating and maintaining the North East Law Review, a student-led periodical based at Newcastle University which publishes student-generated content based on high-quality coursework submissions. This process potentially enhances the assessment process, with the student editorial team preparing essays for publication and student authors re-engaging with their work in light of feedback. Publishing such essays furthermore allows all students to benchmark their own work against excellent coursework performance.     

A law for need or a law for greed?: Restoring the lost law in the international law of foreign investment

The 1990s brought about a change in the international law of foreign investment due to the primacy achieved by the tenets of neo-liberalism. They drove concerns about the environment and poverty away from the concerns of the law and gave priority to the interests of multinational corporations by enhancing their ability for movement of assets and the absolute protection of these assets through treaty rules. The regime created by this law was operated through secure systems of dispute settlement through arbitration which also enabled the stabilization of these rules. In the process, private power of a section within the hegemonic state was able to subvert international law through the use of low order sources of the law and secure a system of investment promotion and protection. The restoration of the more universal themes of environmental protection and poverty alleviation is necessary. This paper outlines the developments that accentuated the sectional interests of multinational capital and explores the means by which a change that reflects the global interests could be effected.

Blockchain and law: Incompatible codes?

Blockchain has recently joined a long line of technological innovations that have been characterised as disruptive to, and possibly even subversive of, fundamental legal principles. This article looks behind the hype to examine how blockchain might – or might not – be compatible with established legal and regulatory models. Data protection is discussed as an example of an area of law that some have claimed cannot be reconciled with blockchain. Various other conflicts are also identified and concerns about blockchain are placed in the context of wider historical debates about new technologies vs law.     

DNA databanks: law enforcement's greatest surveillance tool?

All fifty states have laws requiring the collection of DNA samples from certain classes of criminals. Genetic profiles are gleaned from these samples and entered into DNA databanks, after which they then can be accessed by law enforcement personnel and others. DNA forensic technologies can be used to identify criminal offenders, but they can also be used in ways that reveal health and other personal information about the target and even about his or her relations. Moreover, the rapid introduction of ever-changing types of DNA forensic techniques creates a potential for error. Such errors may wrongly implicate some individuals for a crime and may wrongly exculpate others. This Article examines weaknesses in state DNA databanking laws regarding the protection of genetic privacy and imposition of quality assurance mechanisms and suggests policies which state legislatures should incorporate into the state DNA databanking scheme.     

Economic Crises,Crisis of Labour Law? Lessons from Weimar

Labour law has been thrown into turmoil in many large industrialized countries with democratic tradition and market economies. In fact, rapid economic globalization resulted in an irremediable decline in collective bargaining in most of the states that entered into the sphere of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. On a first reading, the financial crisis of 2008 exacerbated this retreat of labour law back to its initial individualist and contractual forms. In analysing the contemporary crisis of labour law, the historical-comparative method can be highly fruitful, especially if one considers the precedent of the economic crisis of 1929. On this basis, I first consider an influential text by Hugo Sinzheimer on the ‘crisis of labour law’ in Weimar Germany and a study by Otto Kahn-Freund on the changing function of labour law in the same context. These works can be connected to the concept of the ‘labour constitution’, which Max Weber notably developed in an empirical sense, and which finds its extension in the later works of Thilo Ramm, a labour scholar of international reputation.