European Law Commons^™

Taking Subsidiarity Seriously: Federalism In The European Community And The United States, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

For a principle that has dominated discussions of European federalism for over five years, subsidiarity has received surprisingly poor academic mention. Subsidiarity has been criticized as "inelegant . . .Eurospeak," "the epitome of confusion," and simple "gobbledegook." It has been described by some as nothing new and by others as quite novel and actually quite dangerous. The President of the Commission of the European Communities, said to be an enthusiast of subsidiarity, finds it used at times as an "alibi," and more specifically as "a fig leaf ... to conceal [an] unwillingness to honour the commitments which have already been …

Improving Corporate Governance: Lessons From The European Community, Benjamin T. Lo

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Preventing The Theft And Illegal Export Of Art In A Europe Without Borders, Kimberly A. Short

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The opening of internal borders within the European Community presents tremendous opportunity for European economic growth. Yet with all the potential benefits come many problems. Increased illegal art trafficking is one of these problems. This Note examines European treaties, laws of the individual EC Member States, and Community-wide treaties and regulations designed to prevent the theft and illegal export of art. The Note discusses how the differing interests of the Member States have prevented agreement on legislation to protect art and resulted in measures inadequate to protect Europe's vast art treasures. After analyzing the latest EC regulatory attempt to protect …

Implications Of The Single European Act On European Community Law-Making: A Modest Step Forward, Barbara C. Potter

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, Ms. Campbell Potter discusses the interaction of the European Community (EC) institutions and the effect the Single European Act (SEA) will have on EC law-making. Specifically, the author notes that the SEA provisions for expanded use of the qualified majority vote and the new cooperation procedure for passage of legislation have changed the balance of power among EC institutions and should facilitate enactment of EC legislation. Ms. Campbell Potter believes that the SEA will continue to be successful as long as Member States do not recklessly invoke "vital national interest" veto powers and as long as the …

The Recognition Of Judgments In The European Community: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Of The Brussels Convention, Robert C. Reuland

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article is directed at two objectives. It will first provide, in Part I, an outline of the history of the Brussels Convention from its inception to the present day. It will examine the growth of the Convention from a vague undertaking of the six original Member States of the EC, through various treaties of accession and the 1988 Lugano Convention with the EFTA, and finally to the text currently in force. Part II will discuss the nature of the Convention and the philosophy behind it. The second purpose of this article is a more pragmatic one: to provide the …

State Aids And European Community Law, Hans-Jorg Niemeyer

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article provides an overview of EC State aid rules, focusing on recent Commission policy and recent judgments of the Court of Justice on State aids. In Part I, some general points, such as what may constitute a State aid, are considered. In Part II, the procedural aspects are dealt with in more detail, with emphasis on the notification process, and the procedure for reviewing State aids. Part III examines the recovery of illegally granted aids, and the defenses a beneficiary may assert. Next, Part IV sets out the remedies available for breach of the State aid rules, including the …

Subsidiarity And The European Community, George Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The notion of subsidiarity in European federalism labors from all manner of burdens. It seems elusive by nature, commentators claiming that they do not know what subsidiarity means or, if they do, that they do not see in it anything new. At the same time subsidiarity has been presented at least in some quarters as a panacea for the Community's current malaise. It clearly is not that. Even if subsidiarity has not been oversold, it is almost certainly overexposed, a condition that the present Article is unlikely to cure.

My purpose in this Article is simply to help make some …

The European Community After 1992: The Freedom Of Movement Of People And Its Limitations, Ricou Heaton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The end of 1992 has attained significance as the time when borders and barriers to the free movement of people within the European Community (EC) should dissolve. This Note examines those actions taken by EC institutions and member states that are determining the nature of this freedom. This Note explains the major EC institutions and the steps they have taken with respect to freedom of movement. This Note also describes the Schengen Convention, an agreement between , eight EC states that provides a blueprint for dismantling internal borders and strengthening external ones. The author discusses how member states' desire to …

International Regulation And Control Of The Production And Use Of Chemicals And Pesticides: Perspectives For A Convention, Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz

Michigan Journal of International Law

A wide variety of instruments and mechanisms for the regulation and control of chemicals and pesticides is already available internationally. What is missing is an analysis that attempts to systematize the different approaches, to create transparency, to define where they overlap, and to discover prospective deficiencies and shortcomings. In order to accomplish this task, this article covers legally binding rules as well as recommendations and codes - the international soft law. The overall purpose is to outline a framework for future international regulation of chemicals and pesticides and to propose an international convention as a possible solution.

The Political Ecology Of Takeovers: Thoughts On Harmonizing The European Corporate Governance Environment, Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

Economic policy debate in the United States during the 1980s focused on the dynamics of bidder and target tactics in hostile takeovers. Confronted with the largest transactions in business history, financial economists took advantage of developments in econometric techniques to conduct virtually real time studies of the impact on firm value of each new bidder tactic and target defense. For courts and lawyers, hostile takeovers subjected standard features of corporate law to the equivalent of a stress x-ray, revealing previously undetected doctrinal cracks. Congress held seemingly endless hearings on the subject, although managing to enact only relatively innocuous tax penalties …

Competitive Deregulation Of Financial Services Activity In Europe After 1992, Caroline Bradley

Articles

No abstract provided.

1992: The Case Of Financial Services, Caroline Bradley

Articles

No abstract provided.

European Community Competition Law And National Competition Laws, Joachim Zekoll

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines conflicts between the European Community (EC or Community) competition rules and the corresponding laws of the Federal Republic of Germany in three case categories. Professor Zekoll first discusses situations in which corporate practices or agreements violate EC law, but are considered legal under German law. He then analyzes frictions that may arise when both EC and German laws are violated. In both of these case categories, Community law prevails over conflicting solutions under German law. However, considerable doubt exists about the primacy of Community law with respect to the third category involving practices that violate German law, …

Introduction, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

As recent pages of this journal and and any other number of indicators would suggest, legal developments in the European Community (EC or Community) have sparked unprecedented interest on the part of the American legal profession. That this journal, five or ten years ago, would have devoted an entire issue to these developments, while not unimaginable, was unlikely. Today, however, changes in the world legal community's focus make the choice of topic seem quite obvious. The question now seems not to be whether or even when to address the Community, but rather what specific areas to address and how to …

Panel Discussion: Europe 1992, Eric Stein, Jochen A. Frowein, Jacques J.H.J. Bourgeois, Edwin Vermulst, Reinhard Quick

Michigan Journal of International Law

Transcript of a panel on Europe in 1992.

European Community Trade Policies Vis-À-Vis Korea And Taiwan In The Eighties: A Comparative Perspective, Jean-François Bellis

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will review the trade policies of the European Community towards Korea and Taiwan over the past ten years. This time period has been chosen for two reasons. In the first place, ten years ago, on November 28, 1979, the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations was concluded. At that time, the Tokyo Round was the most comprehensive GATT negotiating round ever, both in terms of trade value affected and in terms of its coverage of topics. An interesting question, therefore, is to what extent the 1979 commitments to trade liberalization were actually kept. Secondly, during the last decade …

The "1992 Project": Stages, Structures, Results And Prospects, Claus-Dieter Ehlermann

Michigan Journal of International Law

The "1992 project" has radically changed the European Community. It has given the "common market" new impetus and has lifted the Community out of the deep crisis in which it was bogged down in the first half of the 1980s. The consensus which has been re-established amongst all the Member States through the "internal market" exercise was enshrined in the Single European Act and the acceptance of the Delors package in February 1988. The financial underpinning of the "1992 project," through the reform of the structural funds and the Community's finance system, has given the "internal market" exercise such credibility …

Towards A European Constitution Of The Firm: Problems And Perspectives, Thomas E. Abeltshauser

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will discuss in particular the proposed EEC directive on the harmonization of corporate structures as well as the proposed regulation of the Societas Europea. Initially, these proposals were strongly oriented toward German law. As such, a corporation had to have a managing board as well as a so-called supervisory board and a general meeting of stockholders. Since the EEC Commission published the so-called "Green Paper," which contains a comparative analysis of national legal systems requirements for the structure of corporations and provisions for co-determination rights for employees at the board level, the new proposals concerning the constitution of …

Europe: A Single Currency And A Single Central Bank?, Hugo J. Hahn

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article follows the address delivered by the author in French at the Founding Assembly of the European Society for Banking and Financial Law in Paris on Nov. 5, 1988.

Companies In The European Community: Are The Conflict-Of-Law Rules Ready For 1992?, Andreas Reindl

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article describes the current situation in the emerging integrated system of the European Community, focusing on the potential conflict between Community rules on the freedom of establishment and national conflict-of-law rules relating to companies. In the first part, I shall outline the relevant provisions of EC law and the two conflict-of-law concepts presently exhibited in the national laws of the Member States. In the second part, I shall discuss three cases in which the European Court of Justice recently addressed this subject. In the third part, I shall analyze the impact of the Court's opinions, and finally outline options …

The Ec Hormone Ban Dispute And The Application Of The Dispute Settlement Provisions Of The Standards Code, Allen Dick

Michigan Journal of International Law

As the concept of a unified European market becomes more of a reality as we approach 1992, talk of a "Fortress Europe" has heightened sensitivity on trade issues among officials of the United States and the European Community ("EC"). The EC's plan to ban the sale of meat treated with growth hormones within the Member-States has presented a trade issue disconcerting to both sides. This brewing tempest has raised many interesting legal issues involving the dispute settlement provisions set out in the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade ("Standards Code"). This note examines why the process failed to resolve, and …

Risk Communication Law And Implementation Issues In The United States And European Community, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Risk communication has become an important element of public policy in the United States and the European Community (E.C.) for reducing technological risks to workers, product users and community residents. The risk communication process involves disclosure by an industrial firm (or other party) of information about the hazardous attributes of its activity or product to a regulatory agency or to persons who may be at risk, thereby facilitating a shared understanding of the risk and enabling interpretation of various risk prevention and response measures.

There are two general patterns of risk communication. One involves industrial disclosure to a government agency, …

Obstacles To The Implementation Of The Treaty Of Rome Provisions For Transnational Legal Practice, Gerald L. Greengard

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note argues that the Treaty of Rome has had, and will continue to have, little impact on legal practitioners within the European Community. Part I examines Community barriers to transnational legal practice among the EC nations. It looks first at the history and shortcomings of the 1977 Directive on Freedom of Lawyers to Provide Services. It then describes the effect of the failure of the Council of the European Community to enact a directive mandating mutual recognition of legal degrees. It concludes that neither the Council nor the European Court of Justice is likely to eliminate existing Community-wide barriers …

Judicial Jurisdiction In The United States And In The European Communities: A Comparison, Friedrich Juenger

Michigan Law Review

Eric Stein deserves our gratitude for making European integration accessible to American students and teachers. He has taught and written widely on this important subject, and the casebook he published with Hay and Waelbroeck is a valuable aid for dispelling what a judge of the Communities' Court of Justice called "splendid mutual ignorance." Following Judge Pescatore's suggestion that it is time to take note of the experience gathered on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems worthwhile to compare the evolution of jurisdictional principles in the United States and in the Common Market.

How Flexible Is Community Law? An Unusual Approach To The Concept Of "Two Speeds", Claus-Dieter Ehlermann

Michigan Law Review

The concept of "two speeds" de lege ferenda and the connected question of possible flexibility in Community law de lege lata raise a number of highly complex institutional questions that go to the very roots of the Community system. We offer the following analysis of such questions to Eric Stein, whose writing and teaching have contributed so greatly to the understanding of the Community's foundations.

The European Community And The Requirement Of A Republican Form Of Government, Jochen Abr. Frowein

Michigan Law Review

The European Community - that is, the factual entity composed of three legally separate communities which has been and still is one of the basic concerns of Eric Stein - cannot be understood without taking into account European history after 1933. As an irony of history, the stage for a new beginning was set by the man who destroyed the old Europe and who was the reason that so many academics left the "old country" for the new world. This new start was not only influenced by the determination of those Europeans who had lived through the darkness to overcome …

The Court Of Justice Of The European Communities And Governance In An Economic Crisis, J. Mertens De Wilmars, J. Steenbergen

Michigan Law Review

An economic crisis with the dimensions of the one raging in the world today confronts the judiciary - as well as business undertakings, parliaments and governments, workers, their trade unions and other organizations - with new responsibilities. New areas of law suddenly come to the forefront and even those matters which would appear to be the most firmly settled call for a critical reexamination. Such rethinking may maintain what might otherwise be swept away, or improve what deserves to be changed by way of judicial decisions, or demonstrate that legislative action is both necessary and urgent.

The Supervision Of Corporate Management: A Comparison Of Developments In European Community And United States Law, Alfred F. Conard

Michigan Law Review

In 1971, Eric Stein published an account of the remarkable progress of the European Economic Community (EEC) toward a harmonized law of business corporations. The progress was particularly striking from an American viewpoint, because the harmonization was achieved by moving toward the more rigorous of the various national standards, in contrast to the "race of laxity" or "race for the bottom" that has characterized the movement toward uniformity in the corporation laws of U.S. states.

The Court Of Justice As A Decisionmaking Authority, Ulrich Everling

Michigan Law Review

Eric Stein, to whom this Article is dedicated, has written a number of commentaries on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice on the basis of his experience with both the European continental law and the common law systems. In conformity with his pragmatic approach, the following examination of the Court of Justice as a decisionmaking authority devotes less attention to the theoretical context than to the manner in which the Court attempts to accomplish its task in practice. This essay is intended to provide a judge's point of view, that is to say, a subjective contribution on the basis …

The Case For Federalizing Rules Of Civil Jurisdiction In The European Community, Peter Hay

Michigan Law Review

The European Community is an "incipient federal structure," even if its scope of operation is limited in subject matter and its creation derives from "a network of treaties rather than [from] a formal constitution." A federal structure at once protects, even nurtures, pluralism and coordinates the constituent units in the interest of a union. Federal legislation promotes the interests of the larger unit; a limitation of powers in the constitutive document preserves the integrity of the members. In the American federation, the United States Supreme Court defines the balance between the reach of state and federal law. The balance, moreover, …