The Effectiveness of the EU's Ozone Policy

Has the EU's ozone policy been effective? In other words: What caused the 90 per cent phase-out of ozone depleting substances (ODS) within the EU? Was it due to an EU-wide regulatory approach, to national circumstances, or to the Montreal Protocol? As EU's environmental policy has not been overly successful so far, it would interesting to know why ozone policy is an area where the EU and its Member States have reached targets effectively over a relatively short time. We suggest that the effectiveness of EU's ozone policy is due to two factors that together secured this rapid phase-out. First, the ozone policy was enacted by means of an EU regulation – rather than by directives – which required all Member States and all larger ODS-generating corporations to implement a ban simultaneously. Second, with the US administration making a u-turn and the increased availability of ODS-substitute chemicals, Europe saw a political opportunity to speed up the phase-out process. A limited study of the phase-out of ODS in Spain supports this argument. While the EU's ozone policy has been effective, its success owes much to particular economic and political circumstances associated with the issue of ozone depletion.     

Mixed Messages and Mixed Results: The EU's Promotion of Human Rights in Turkey

In spite of the fact that human rights appear, based on proclamations made by EU representatives, to be of critical importance in the EU's negotiations with Turkey, human rights reform has not been a primary target of pre‐accession aid to Turkey. Why is human rights reform not a central priority in the EU's allocation of aid in this case? First, Commission representatives and Members of the European Parliament disagree over the relative importance of the status of human rights in the pre‐accession reform process. Second, the format of the aid allocation process magnifies inconsistencies in the EU's approach to human rights reform.     

从欧盟反恐视角检视共同外交与安全政策的发展与挑战

911事件后,欧盟开始反思对待恐怖主义的态度与方式。如今欧盟反恐政策已成为欧盟共同外交与安全政策要务之一,内部安全领域也建立了庞大的反恐机制。然而恐怖主义的性质在改变并可能与其他全球安全议题挂钩,加上美国推进全球反恐战争的强硬主张,使向来强调柔性强权特质的欧盟陷入两难。后冷战的安全议题具有多面性及复杂性,欧盟必须打破支柱框架,使共同外交与安全政策和反恐的大框架整合。此过程反映出欧盟安全思维的转变,然而,共同外交与安全政策下反恐安排建制的成果与缺失,也突显出欧盟想要建立外交与安全的共同政策仍需努力的事实。     

The Winds of Change Blow Again: The World Trade Organisation's Impact on the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy

This paper examines the legal relationship between the World Trade Organisation'sAgreement on Agriculture and the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in light of the reopening of the WTO Agricultural Negotiations in the Millennium Round. It also examines the impact of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, on the Mac Sharry reforms of the CAP. An in depth study of the EC's Cereals Common Organisation is included. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Differentiating and Linking Politics and Adjudication—The Example of European Electricity Policy

The paper analyses how politics and adjudication answer similar questions in the context of policy-making. It contrasts how societal problems are selected, defined, solved and legitimised by both disciplines. We raise these questions in regard to the liberalization of the European Electricity markets. We reconstruct the decision-making process at the political and adjudicative arena taking place in this policy area. By so doing, we elaborate the differences and establish the links between politics and adjudication. We argue that what differentiates these two disciplines constitutes their very links; that is, the adjudicative and political arena are linked precisely because they are different at various level.     

论欧洲共同体之反倾销法

本文以欧洲共同体 (EEC)之反倾销政策为主要内容 ,通过对其所形成背景、立法变更、新旧反倾销规则比较和其对欧洲共同体倾销差额计算方式之影响的研究 ,针对当前欧洲共同体反倾销政策实践的检讨 ,并以欧洲共同体反倾销法与美国反倾销法两者进行比较 ,希望藉此有助于对欧洲共同体之反倾销制度有更深入的分析与了解。     

The Decline and Decay of European Refugee Policy

This article challenges the view, implicit in much current researchon EU migration and asylum policy, that supranationalizationis a self-evident antidote to the exclusionary and securitizedmigration policy that has been enacted through inter-governmentalcooperation. It does so by treating supranationalization asan open question in need of empirical scrutiny. To develop thisthesis, it undertakes not only a critique of the current developmentstowards supranational policies, but also of the inter-governmentalpolicy-making system, pursuing a broad brush historical assessmentup to and beyond Amsterdam, with the aim of bringing fresh andfurther insights into the future development of EU asylum policy.It concludes that the current aims are less to do with the establishmentof a common European asylum system and more to do with reducingimmigration pressure and compensating for the perceived lossesof internal security in the wake of full freedom of movementinside the Union. Communitarization will not necessarily occursimply because the European Union is intent upon institutingever stricter immigration controls. Communitarization is doggedby the legacy of intensive trans-governmentalism. In particular,the British, Danish and Irish governments have only been preparedto support communitarization so long as they could have separateprotocols that legitimized their non-participation. The UK andIreland have opted into all proposals on asylum, illegal migrationand civil law but have opted out of practically all proposalsconcerning visas, borders, and legal migration. The securitarianframe still predominates and trans-governmentalism refuses todie. In January 2005, following the agreement on The Hague programme,there was change in decision-making rules from unanimous votingto Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in the European Council andco-decision with the European Parliament. Yet, there is no guaranteethis will bring about more liberal asylum rules, as is clearfrom the ‘Schengen Borders Code’ which was agreedin June 2005. This is because European migration policy hasalways been fraught with internal contradictions, which haveyet to be resolved. Accordingly, the emergence of a rights-respectingmodel of asylum law based on the Geneva Convention 1951 remainsa distant dream.     

The Proposed ‘Common European Sales Law’: Legal Framework and the Agreement of the Parties

The European Commission's Proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (‘CESL’) seeks to create a European scheme of contract law available for parties to choose to govern cross‐border contracts for the sale of goods, supply of ‘digital content,’ and for the supply of related services. This article explains the background to the Proposal, sketches out the purposes and scope of the CESL, and considers and criticises its legal framework (and in particular its relationship with private international law) and the key requirement of the parties’ agreement. In the author's view, the CESL scheme remains an unconvincing basis for the achievement of its economic purposes and, as regards consumer contracts, puts too much reliance on the agreement of the consumer as a justification for the loss of their existing protection under EU private international law rules.     

The Balance of Powers Between National and European Institutions

This paper details certain fundamental considerations intended to clarify and advance the notion of a 'co-operative relationship' within the current lively debate on the relationship between European law and constitutional law. The argument is set against the background of the constitutional theory of separation of powers.     

Social Values and the Multiple Sources of European Social Law

Abstract: The paper aims at describing the current status of European social law, by examining different sources. These include the most recent directives; the Protocol attached to the Maastricht Treaty; the Commission's latest White papers on social policies and on economic growth and unemployment; and the case law of the European Court of Justice. In such a variegated legal landscape, a significant role could be played by non-binding measures; the notion of soft law is slowly acquiring its own dignity in European social law and is emerging for open interpretation. Yet, European labour law houses a fragile body of norms. The spreading of social values would become a tangible prospect if the potential of the multiple sources here examined were better exploited by all actors. Although a coherent legal structure is still to come, a legal culture is being created which should be strengthened through action by all Community institutions.     

Constitutional Pluralism and the Question of the European Common Good

Constitutional pluralism seems to be one of the most inspiring theories of European constitutionalism. It can account for the multilayered institutional framework of the Union. Therefore, it is a natural candidate for explaining how to track the European public interest. Pluralism may serve as the best methodology for keeping into account and for respecting the multiple perspectives on the common good represented by every institutional layer of the Union. After having examined the theories of two of the most influential authors of constitutional pluralism, Mattias Kumm and Miguel Maduro, this essay tries to show how pluralism might improve its highly potential explanatory and normative force, that is, by including in the institutional picture not only courts but also political institutions. In this way, the constitutional dialogue between the European and the national layers would be enriched, and every European and national voice might have a say in the interactions between institutions, securing a fairer way of tracking the European common good.     

Common Foreign and Security Policy: The Consequences of the Court's Extended Jurisdiction

Despite the explicit exclusion of its jurisdiction, the Court of Justice of the European Union exercises judicial control over Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This article examines and explains how the Court's extended jurisdiction contributes to the juridification, judicialisation and constitutionalisation of the EU's compound CFSP structures. It first lays the groundwork by explaining the link between constitutionalisation and democratic legitimation and setting out the Court's formal jurisdiction over CFSP under Article 40 Treaty on European Union and Articles 218(11) and 275(2) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The centre piece of the article then identifies how the Court's jurisdiction has expanded since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, points at additional ‘substantive’ avenues of judicial review on the basis of access to information and access to justice, and analyses the effects of the Court of Justice of the European Union's extended jurisdiction for CFSP.     

The Self-Referential European Polity, its Legal Context and Systemic Differentiation: Theoretical Reflections on the Emergence of the EU's Political and Legal Autopoiesis

Abstract:  This article starts by summarising major theoretical debates regarding European polity and governance. It highlights the role of statehood in those debates and suggests moving beyond the constraints of institutionalist and constructivist perspectives by adopting specific notions from the theory of autopoietic social systems. The following part describes the EU political system as self-referential, functionally differentiated from the system of European law, and internally differentiated between European institutions and Member State governments. Although the Union transgresses its nation-state segmentation, the notions of statehood and democratic legitimacy continue to inform legal and political semantics of the EU and specific responses to the Union's systemic tensions, such as the policy of differentiated integration legislated by the flexibility clauses. The democratic deficit of instrumental legitimation justified by outcomes, the most recent example of which is the Lisbon Treaty, subsequently reveals the level of EU functional differentiation and the impossibility of fostering the ultimate construction of a normatively integrated and culturally united European polity. It shows a much more profound social dynamics of differentiation at the level of emerging European society—dynamics which do not adopt the concept of the European polity as an encompassing metaphor of this society, but makes it part of self-referential and self-limiting semantics of the functionally differentiated European political system.     

我国反垄断法与产业政策、竞争政策目标

竞争的正常运行需要有法律保障,但成就于国家政策目标的落实与实现。我国反垄断法在制定过程中,应将产业政策和竞争政策主要体现于反垄断法的适用范围、规制对象和执法机构这三个问题上。     

论司法培育和弘扬社会主义核心价值观的机理与技术路径

司法与政治密不可分。法院必须根据其功能定位执行党的政策,为中国特色社会主义事业服务。最高人民法院将国家培育和弘扬社会主义核心价值观的政策转化成司法规范性文件,各级法院审理案件时依据或参考这些文件确定当事人之间的权利义务,从而培育和弘扬核心价值观的要求。司法活动中,法官主要通过法律规范的选择、法律含义的确定、法律漏洞的填补等途径来培育和弘扬核心价值观。     

Bosman—There and Back Again: The Legitimacy of Playing Quotas under European Union Sports Policy

The 1995 ruling of the European Court of Justice in Bosman was a pivotal point in the relationship between the European Union and sport. It has had an immense impact upon professional team sports, most notably football, in terms of liberalising the transfer system and abolishing player quotas. This paper will chart the development of a European sports law policy generally and will specifically discuss two current proposals concerning the reintroduction of playing quotas in football. We will examine the legality of these proposals with reference to Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and will evaluate the political context within which these proposals have been promulgated. It will be suggested that a possible solution, which should end legal uncertainty, could be the adoption of a collective agreement or directive based on the methodology of reflexive labour law.