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George Washington University Law School

2013

Comparative law

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Reconciling Personal Information In The United States And European Union, Daniel J. Solove, Paul M. Schwartz Jan 2013

Reconciling Personal Information In The United States And European Union, Daniel J. Solove, Paul M. Schwartz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

US and EU privacy law diverge greatly. At the foundational level, they diverge in their underlying philosophy: In the US, privacy law focuses on redressing consumer harm and balancing privacy with efficient commercial transactions. In the EU, privacy is hailed as a fundamental right that trumps other interests. Even at the threshold level - determining what information is covered by the regulation - the US and EU differ significantly. The existence of personal information - commonly referred to as “personally identifiable information” (PII) - is the trigger for when privacy laws apply. PII is defined quite differently in US and …


Rethinking The Legal Foundations Of The European Constitutional Order: The Lessons Of The New Historical Research, Francesca Bignami Jan 2013

Rethinking The Legal Foundations Of The European Constitutional Order: The Lessons Of The New Historical Research, Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay examines the implications of new historical research on the origins of EU law for legal theory. Based on a review of the recent work of Morten Rasmussen, Bill Davies, Anne Boerger-de Smedt, Karin van Leeuwen, and Alexandre Bernier, the essay demonstrates how this historical research improves our understanding of two important themes in comparative law—comparative legal traditions and legal transplants. By examining the legal actors in different jurisdictions responsible for building an area of public law—the economic law of the fledgling European Communities—the new historical research contributes to the legal traditions literature on legal elites, which has traditionally …