The Making of Consumer Law and Policy in Europe

The Making of Consumer Law and Policy in Europe

Author: Hans-W Micklitz

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-11-04

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1509944850

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book analyses the founding years of consumer law and consumer policy in Europe. It combines two dimensions: the making of national consumer law and the making of European consumer law, and how both are intertwined. The chapters on Germany, Italy, the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom serve to explain the economic and the political background which led to different legal and policy approaches in the then old Member States from the 1960s onwards. The chapter on Poland adds a different layer, the one of a former socialist country with its own consumer law and how joining the EU affected consumer law at the national level. The making of European consumer law started in the 1970s rather cautiously, but gradually the European Commission took an ever stronger position in promoting not only European consumer law but also in supporting the building of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the umbrella organisation of the national consumer bodies. The book unites the early protagonists who were involved in the making of consumer law in Europe: Guido Alpa, Ludwig Krämer, Ewa Letowska, Hans-W Micklitz, Klaus Tonner, Iain Ramsay, and Thomas Wilhelmsson, supported by the younger generation Aneta Wiewiórowska Domagalska, Mateusz Grochowski, and Koen Docter, who reconstructs the history of BEUC. Niklas Olsen and Thomas Roethe analyse the construction of this policy field from a historical and sociological perspective. This book offers a unique opportunity to understand a legal and political field, that of consumer law and policy, which plays a fundamental role in our contemporary societies.


Regulating Europe

Regulating Europe

Author: Giandomenico Majone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-11-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 113476457X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Regulating Europe explains why economic and social regulation is rapidly becoming the new frontier of public policy and public administration in Europe, both at the national and EU levels. Statutory regulation, implemented by independent regulatory bodies, is replacing not only older forms of state intervention but also, to some extent, the redistributive policies of the welfare state. Thus Regulating Europe is an examiniation of the emergence of the regulatory state as the successor of the Keynesian welfare state of the past. Contributions emphasize the parallelism of policy developments at the national and European levels. Part one provides the necessary theoretical background, including a new model of demand and supply of Community regulation. The second part presents a series of case studies of particular regulatory policies and institutions in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the EU. Part three evaluates current policy and institutional developments, pointing out how the lack of a tradition of statutory regulation in Europe affects the design of the new institutions. Special attention is devoted to the issue of the democratic accountability of expert, politically independent agencies - a problem which, contrary to widespread opinion, is as severe at the national level as it is in Brussels. It is suggested that the requirements of democratic accountability, and of subsidiarity, cannot be met by re-nationalizing European policies, much less by increasing the current level of centralization. A more promising solution is the development of regulatory networks closely integrating national and supranational regulators.


The Refugee in International Law

The Refugee in International Law

Author: Guy S. Goodwin-Gill

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-03-22

Total Pages: 847

ISBN-13: 0192520350

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Millions of people today are forced to flee their homes as a result of conflict, systemic discrimination, persecution, and other violations of their human rights. The core instruments on which they must rely to secure international protection are the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, now complemented by international and regional human rights treaties. This book, the leading text in a field where refugee law is now a subject of global importance, examines key challenges to system of international protection, including those arising from within the asylum process, increased controls over the movements of people, and the 'new' concern with security. The situation of refugees is one of the most pressing and urgent problems facing the international community and refugee law has grown in recent years to a subject of global importance. In this long-awaited third edition, each chapter has been thoroughly revised and updated, every issue, old and new, has received fresh analysis, and 'complementary' or human rights-based protection is given special attention. Features include: analysis and assessment of developments in interpreting the refugee definition, with particular reference to 'social group', 'exclusion', procedures, and the impact of European Union harmonization initiatives. In addition, this book reviews the situation of refugee women and children; the plight of Palestinian refugees; the protection of internally displaced persons; the role and responsibilities of the UNHCR, including in the administration of camps and settlements; the current status in general international law of the fundamental principles of non-refoulement, asylum, and the right to seek asylum; and the extent of protection possibilities in human rights treaties, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights.


Economic Efficiency

Economic Efficiency

Author: Ben Van Rompuy

Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 503

ISBN-13: 9041142150

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Over the past decade, we have witnessed an apparent convergence of views among competition agency officials in the European Union and the United States on the appropriate goals of competition law enforcement. Antitrust policy, it is now suggested, should focus on enhancing economic efficiency, which we are to believe will promote consumer welfare. Recent EU Commission Guidelines on the application of Article 101 TFEU appear to banish considerations that cannot be construed as having an economic efficiency value – such as the environment, cultural policy, employment, public health, and consumer protection – from the application of Article 101 TFEU. Arguing that the professed adoption of an exclusive efficiency approach to Article 101 TFEU does not preclude, but rather obfuscates the role of non-efficiency considerations, the author of this timely contribution accomplishes the following objectives: traces the genesis of the shift to an efficiency orientation in EU and US antitrust policy and dispels several ingrained misconceptions that underpin it; demonstrates the close interrelationship between evolving images of the purpose of antitrust, the development of related enforcement norms, and enforcement output; provides in-depth analyses of a number of analytically rich cases in the audiovisual sector (and particularly those related to sports rights); and explores what the role of non-efficiency considerations in the application of Article 101 TFEU could and should be under the modernized enforcement regime.