Implementing supply chain information integration in China: The role of institutional forces and trust⋆

This paper attempts to deconstruct the free speech defense of the publications of cartoons offensive to many Muslims in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe in order to highlight the deep philosophical tensions between the characterizations of religion and race, between free speech and hate speech, and between the freedoms of expression and of religion. A scrutiny of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) reveals the difficulties inherent in defining permissible limits on expression, particularly as it involves the identification and prioritization of interests that are worthy of protection under a state's law. The struggles over the characterization of certain interests as fundamental rights, in turn, raise questions over the ‘fundamental-ness' of rights and the valuation of foundational social and political values that the rhetoric of rights presumes as incontrovertible. This study seeks to advance the argument that fundamental rights, such as the freedom of expression, are legal constructs whose value is contingent on the ends they are employed to serve in a given socio-political environment. While the contingency of fundamental rights is palpable in debates over their definition and over what they include or exclude, it is most clearly visible in the clash of fundamental rights, in particular the freedoms of expression and religion.

The Fundamentalism of Liberal Rights: Decoding the Freedom of Expression Under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

Regulation (EC) 1107/2009 lays down the main instruments for placing effective plant protection products (using pesticide substances) on the market that are safe for humans, animals and the environment, while at the same time ensuring effective functioning of the internal market and improved agricultural production. This European Implementation Assessment found that the above objectives, while largely relevant to real needs, are not being achieved in practice. In particular, the day to day implementation of the main instruments of the regulation – substance approval, plant protection product authorisation and enforcement of the regulatory decisions taken in the frame of the approvals and authorisations – is problematic, which also affects other related EU policies. Nevertheless, despite the implementation challenges observed, stakeholders including national competent authorities, health/environment NGOs, manufacturers of substances and plant protection products and their users (farmers), agree that the EU is the appropriate level at which regulatory action in the field of pesticides (used in plant protection products) should continue to take place. European Implementation Assessment AUTHORS (INTRODUCTION) European Implementation Assessment written by Alina DINU and Ekaterina KARAMFILOVA from the Ex-Post Evaluation Unit, Directorate for Impact Assessment and European Added Value, European Parliamentary Research Service. To contact the Unit, please email: EPRS-ExPostEvaluation@ep.europa.eu The authorship of the annexed studies, commissioned by EPRS, is set out in the following pages, and in each annex. RESPONSIBLE ADMINISTRATORS Alina DINU and Ekaterina KARAMFILOVA, Ex-Post Evaluation Unit. To contact the Unit, please e-mail EPRS-ExPostEvaluation@ep.europa.eu

The placing of plant protection products on the market

The ability of the parties to conclude binding agreements, and to determine the contents of these agreements, is at the very core of our market system. They are the consequence of our liberal understanding of personhood, placing individuality and autonomy as essential elements of our personality. Despite the importance of these concepts, however, the content of freedom of contract has experienced significant changes throughout the years, as more and more limitations are imposed upon it. This new understanding rests on the idea that not all parties are the same, and that there are certain matters that should not be modified by mere agreement. Our work focuses on the relation that freedom of contract (and its limitations) has with forum selection clauses, as well as whether they can be seen as abusive terms. In order to conduct this analysis, we use the case of maritime carriage contracts under bills of lading, reviewing the regulations that affect the trade, and whether changes need to be made to accommodate our new understanding.

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Freedom of contract, bargaining power & forum selection in bills of lading

Although cohabitation and childbearing within cohabitation have increased in Europe over recent decades, the variation across Europe remains remarkably wide Most studies on union formation have not explicitly addressed the role of state policies in the development of cohabitation or discussed how countries have responded to changes in union formation by passing legislation Here we discuss historical and theoretical issues relevant to the relationship between state policies and union formation and describe policies relating to cohabitation and marriage in nine Western European countries Drawing on secondary sources and legal documents, we examine the quantity of regulations that mention cohabitation and the approach to cohabitation in 19 policy dimensions We then place the countries along a continuum, from those that have equalized cohabitation and marriage to those that only regulate marriage As a whole, this overview raises questions about the changing institution of marriage, as well as the increasing institutionalization of cohabitation

How Similar Are Cohabitation and Marriage? Legal Approaches to Cohabitation across Western Europe

The European Union is the result of a unique attempt at international integration. While other integration movements have always relied on a continuous political affirmation of integration by the participating states, the European Union is characterized by a transfer of sovereign rights of legislation, execution, and adjudication to central institutions. At the same time, the Treaty of Rome has introduced the legal framework of a common market, providing for individual rights and obligations of citizens in the whole Union. This article sets out the basic legal structures of the Union and the Common Market, the types of legal instruments and their essential effects, and the efforts undertaken to harmonize national legal systems.

European Union Law

The Communitarization of the Conflict of Laws under the Treaty of Amsterdam

Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht

“There is no discipline of legal science which has such a distinctly European character as the discipline of private law: : : ” These are the opening words written by the famous scholar Paul Koschaker in his book Europe and the Roman Law, published about half a century ago.1 The present-day reader is stunned: do these words refer to that very nationally-minded academic treatment of private law which we know today? Can a “distinctly European character” be ascribed to an academic discipline which frequently does not even notice what is going on abroad in its own domain? It is true that this confinement within domestic limits is often explained by the historical and positive character of the law,2 but isn’t this explanation, given in an era of national legislation, the outright negation of a European mind? Koschaker himself was aware of the progressive national contraction of legal science and of private law; he based his judgement exclusively on the fact that, for more than 850 years, the discipline of private law was “a not unessential cornerstone in the construction of that form that we call Europe today”.3 Is the identity of European private law no more than the identity of its historical roots? Is European private law a mere relic, pathetically mourned after the European catastrophe of the second world war? The aftermath of the

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A common contract law for the common market

The law of business relations has been created and applied outside state or seignorial courts for centuries before the growing terri torial states started to incorporate this body of law into their own state law from the seventeenth century onwards. But even the commercial codes of the nineteenth century left the door open for private regula tion. After an outline of this development the article argues that pri vate regulation and state law are difficult to separate in the field of business relations. Instead, one can ascertain a wide range of different forms of mixed privatelpublic regulation. This range extends from spontaneous custom through privately generated custom, state-avoid ing custom, state-supported custom all the way to dispositive law, property rights law, market protection law and market failure com pensation law. While state legislation by necessity is required for the latter forms, private regulation has a comparative advantage in many other areas. While the author renounces the assumption of an overall theoretical foundation, he tries to identify factors which favor the emergence of private rule-making, in particular the transnational character of legal relations, the speed or specific expertise required for decision-making and the impact of corporatism.

Jürgen Basedow

Papers

European Union Law

The Communitarization of the Conflict of Laws under the Treaty of Amsterdam

Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht

A common contract law for the common market

The State’s Private Law and the Economy—Commercial Law as an Amalgam of Public and Private Rule-Making