European Law Commons^™

Changes In The European Union's Regime Of Recognizing And Enforcing Judgments And Transnational Litigation In The United States, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The European Commission has proposed to amend (recast) the Brussels I Regulation, which governs jurisdiction to adjudicate, parallel proceedings, and judgments recognition within the European Union. Although much of the Brussels I Regulation is simply the 1968 Brussels Convention cast into European Union legislation, the proposed amendments are part of a deeper set of structural and conceptual changes in the law of transnational litigation within the Union over the past couple of decades. Understanding these changes is essential to understanding what drives the proposed amendments and what is likely to follow.

In this paper – presented at the symposium Our …

Expectations From Technology And The Indian State: Comparing Interventions And The Judiciary, Nupur Chowdhury, Nidhi Srivastava

Nupur Chowdhury

The Indian State’s expectations from technology in terms of its role in economic development has been an important factor, in shaping public policy in India. Post-independence the government through its five year plans laid the essential groundwork for sustained public investment in technology development in specific sectors, like agriculture. Since the early eighties, the interventions were more forthright – departments were set up to channel public research investment and promote technologies like biotechnology and information technology. This illustrated a shift from purposive technology towards embracing an all-encompassing technology vision that formed the core of the economic development agenda, considered a …

Changes In The European Union's Regime Of Recognizing And Enforcing Judgments And Transnational Litigation In The United States, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Samuel P. Baumgartner

The European Commission has proposed to amend (recast) the Brussels I Regulation, which governs jurisdiction to adjudicate, parallel proceedings, and judgments recognition within the European Union. Although much of the Brussels I Regulation is simply the 1968 Brussels Convention cast into European Union legislation, the proposed amendments are part of a deeper set of structural and conceptual changes in the law of transnational litigation within the Union over the past couple of decades. Understanding these changes is essential to understanding what drives the proposed amendments and what is likely to follow.

In this paper – presented at the symposium Our …

Private Rights Or Public Wrongs? The Crime Victims Rights Act Of 2004 In Historical Context, Christopher J. Truxler

Christopher J. Truxler

Historically, crime victims served as policemen, investigators, and private prosecutors, and were regarded as law enforcement’s most dependable catalyst. The Crime Victim’s Rights Act of 2004 grants crime victims eight substantive and procedural rights and breathes new life into the common law idea that crime is both a public wrong and a private injury. The Act has, however, elicited ardent criticism. Opponents contend that the Act is both bad policy and, most likely, unconstitutional. Without commenting on the Act’s policy or constitutionality, this Note places the Crime Victims’ Rights Act within a broader historical context where victims’ needs can be …

French Parliament And European Integration, Arthur Dyevre

Arthur Dyevre

Through successive constitutional reforms over the past two decades, French parliamentarians have gained new rights and instruments to monitor policymaking at EU level and to exert tighter scrutiny over the executive branch. Yet the more structural and long-standing obstacles to the reparliamentarisation of EU issues have not been removed, which explains why the reforms have failed to deliver the hoped for Europeanization of parliamentary debates. While some progress has undoubtedly been made – notably with respect to MPs' access to information and expertise on EU legislative proposals – Parliament’s overall influence in EU matters remains low and the innovations introduced …

Recent Abuse Of Dominance And Cartel Cases, Anca Daniela Chirita

Anca Daniela Chirita

This articles offers a brief review of the recent developments in the areas of abuse of dominance and cartels under Romanian competition law.

Drept Privat Într-O Societate Post-Naţională: De La Reglementarea Ex Post La Reglementarea Ex Ante, Jan M. Smits

Jan M Smits

This contribution (in Romanian) shows how the role of law is changing as a result of globalisation and technological progress. It demonstrates how the traditional view of law as being produced by different nation-state legal orders, each claiming exclusive jurisdiction for a limited territory, is gradually making place for alternative types of ordering. The ex post reliance on the law to provide appropriate rules, enforcement and dispute resolution is replaced by a situation in which actors proactively avoid as much as possible the applicability of laws. This development towards delivering ‘legality’ without law is much more important in understanding the …

La Revocación De Actos Tributarios En España Dentro Del Contexto Comunitario (Revocation Of Tax Acts In Spain Within The Eu Context), Jesús A. Soto

Jesús Alfonso Soto Pineda

Este artículo expone la revocación administrativa de actos tributarios en el ordenamiento jurídico español, el recorrido y razonamientos doctrinales que han sustentado la consolidación de la revisión en materia fiscal en el país ibérico, así como el soporte jurisprudencial y legal comunitario e interno que ha permitido formalizar una práctica, que con antelación a la aparición de la reforma ya era interpretada como una vía eficaz de reducción de la alta litigiosidad que se presenta en el ámbito tributario en España. El nivel de desarrollo de la revocación se analiza en detalle, así como también los presupuestos, actores, límites y …

Bridge Banks: Detox Tools For A Melted Economy, Gabriela Steier

Gabriela Steier

This paper compares the fragmented three-pillar banking system in Germany to the banking system in the U.S. and suggests an amendment to 12 U.S.C.A. § 1821(n), the bridge bank statute, to make some fragmentation of the financial sector in the U.S. possible. This paper is the first of its kind and explains why the German bad bank prototype works within the fragmented three-pillars of banking. The three pillars of banking in Germany are (1) Savings Banks (Sparkassen), (2) Private Commercial Banks (Kreditbanken, Genossenschaftsbanken), and (3) Public and Cooperative Credit Institutions (Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken). The resulting fragmented banking system is more …

Polar Law And Good Governance, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This chapter will assess the Antarctic Treaty System, ask what polar lessons can be learned regarding common pool resources, and analyze law of the sea and related measures. It will consider such substantive areas as Arctic and Antarctic natural resource management and procedural opportunities as inclusive governance structures. Enhancing good governance can occur through trust building forums that bring together stakeholders, share information, and make environmentally sound decisions regarding sustainable development.

Business Insolvency And The Irish Debt Crisis, 11 Rich. J. Global L. & Bus. 407 (2012), Paul B. Lewis

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Among the volume of material written about the Irish debt crisis and its impact over the past few years, strikingly little has been written about the ability to save a financially distressed company under Irish law and whether corporate restructuring could have mitigated some of the financial damage to Irish companies, particularly those in the property and construction industries. There is a reason for this. The number of filings under the Examinership law - the rough equivalent of Chapter 11 in the United States - remained small and relatively constant during both the recent boom and the more immediate bust …

Secular Crosses And The Neutrality Of Secularism, Marie E. Roper

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note discusses analogous themes in two religious public display cases, Lautsi v. Italy, recently decided by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and Salazar v. Buono, recently handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Broader critiques of ECHR religious jurisprudence are addressed in the context of the interpretation and application of the principle of neutrality and the argument that secularism is not a necessary postulate of this demand. It is this theme of the relationship between neutrality and secularism that is also prominent in the American discussion about the relationship between government and religion. …

Transnational Adoption And European Immigration Politics: Producing The National Body In Sweden, Barbara Yngvesson

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article explores the role of transnational adoption in the production of a multicultural but Swedish national body during the second half of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first century, when Sweden became a multiethnic, multicultural, and racially divided country. I examine the development of international adoption policies in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, emphasizing the erasure of the child's connection to a preadoptive past, even as the child's cultural difference was celebrated in adopting nations. In Sweden, which in the late 1970s and early 1980s had the world's highest adoption ratio (number of transnational adoptions per …

Human Rights And The Elusive Universal Subject: Immigration Detention Under International Human Rights And Eu Law, Cathryn Costello

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The right to liberty is ubiquitous in human rights instruments, in essence protecting all individuals from arbitrary arrest and detention. Yet, in practice, immigration detention is increasingly routine, even automatic, across Europe. Asylum seekers in particular have been targeted for detention. While international human rights law limits detention, its protections against immigration detention are weaker than in other contexts, as the state's immigration control prerogatives are given sway. In spite of the overlapping authority of international and regional human rights bodies, the caselaw in this field is diverse. Focusing on the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human …

The Penal Order: Prosecutorial Sentencing As A Model For Criminal Justice Reform?, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter traces the history of the penal order from its earliest roots through its consolidation as a normal alternative form of procedure in Germany. It compares the types of penal order procedures found in modern criminal procedure codes, and it compares penal orders with other “consensual” procedural modes that also involve considerable prosecutorial influence in determination of the level of guilt and punishment: diversion, pleas and stipulations of guilt, and abbreviated trials based on the contents of the preliminary investigation dossier. Finally, it explores whether the penal order, could eventually become a model for the consensual resolution of all …

The Burdens And Benefits Of Brighton, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Litigation In The European Union: Does The U.S. Class Action Have A New Analogue?, S. I. Strong

Faculty Articles

The United States has long embraced the concept of regulatory litigation, whereby individual litigants, often termed “private attorneys general,” are allowed to enforce certain public laws as a matter of institutional design. Although several types of regulatory litigation exist, the U.S. class action is often considered the paradigmatic model for this type of private regulation.

For years, the United States appeared to be the sole proponent of both regulatory litigation and large-scale litigation. However, in February 2012, the European Union dramatically reversed its existing policies toward mass claims resolution when the European Parliament adopted a resolution proposing to create a …

Governing Interdependent Financial Systems: Lessons From The Vienna Initiative, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

Financial markets have become globally interdependent, yet their governance has remained national at the core. This friction encumbers crisis management and distorts incentives for crisis prevention. The Vienna Initiative, formed to manage the fallout from the global crisis in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), offers an alternative coordinated, multi-stakeholder governance framework. A critical prerequisite for such a regime is a coordinating agent, or ‘anchor tenant’, that is deeply vested in the stability of transnational financial systems, but does not directly compete with market actors or regulators. Lessons for more effective governance of financial interdependence are discussed.

When Copyright Law And Science Collide: Empowering Digitally Integrated Research Methods On A Global Scale, Jerome H. Reichman, Ruth L. Okediji

Faculty Scholarship

Automated knowledge discovery tools have become central to the scientific enterprise in a growing number of fields and are widely employed in the humanities as well. New scientific methods, and the evolution of entirely new fields of scientific inquiry, have emerged from the integration of digital technologies into scientific research processes that ingest vast amounts of published data and literature. The Article demonstrates that intellectual property laws have not kept pace with these phenomena.

Copyright law and science co-existed for much of their respective histories, with a benign tradition of the former giving way to the needs of the latter. …

The Brussels Effect, Anu Bradford

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the unprecedented and deeply underestimated global power that the EU is exercising through its legal institutions and standards, and how it successfully exports that influence to the rest of the world. Without the need to use international institutions or seek other nations' cooperation, the EU has a strong and growing ability to promulgate regulations that become entrenched in the legal frameworks of developed and developing markets alike, leading to a notable "Europeanization" of many important aspects of global commerce. The Article identifies the precise conditions for and the specific mechanism through which this externalization of EU's standards …