Articles for category: AAA General

The European Court of Human Rights‹ April 9 Climate Rulings and the Future (Thereof)

By recognizing the responsibility they have toward future individuals who will be standing in their shoes, current decision-makers are encouraged to adopt long-term perspectives and consider the broader implications of their actions beyond the immediate. This responsibility is echoed in numerous statements by the ECtHR in its rulings about how it understands its own role in European society and the world, and about the deference it believes it owes to domestic decision-makers on the one hand, and to its own past and future work on the other hand. In this light, the ECtHR has struck a pragmatic yet slightly cynical balance between the great demands it was faced with and the great responsibilities it owes to European citizens, to other institutions, and to itself.

29. April 2024

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Overcoming Big Tech AI Merger Evasions: Innovating EU Competition Law through the AI Act

To develop AI, computing power and access to data (aka bigness) are crucial. Now, Big Tech companies appear evading EU competition law. Companies like Google and Microsoft evade the EU Merger Regulation by entering partnerships with smaller AI labs that fall short of shifting ownership but nevertheless increase the monopolistic power of Big Tech. These quasi-mergers are particularly problematic in the context of generative AI, which relies even more than many other services on incredibly vast computing power. That is a dire state from an economic as well as a more fundamental and democratic perspective, as concentrating economic might in the hands of very few companies may cause problems down the road.

29. April 2024

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Uniting the Indian Opposition

More than 35 parties have come together to form a big-tent united opposition bloc called the ‘Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance’ (“INDIA”) to jointly fight the BJP in the 2024 General Elections. They believe that if the opposition could field a single common candidate against every BJP candidate, they could potentially defeat the BJP or at least challenge its ambitious goal of winning a supermajority. The strategy of uniting the opposition against an electorally strong and populist leader is not uncommon, both for India and globally. In the following paragraphs, I’ll discuss how this strategy has played out in the recent past and what lessons INDIA could learn from such a global experience.

28. April 2024

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Long Live Nottebohm

Next year, Nottebohm will be turning 70. Only very recently, Weiler, on this blog, made the point that the argument of a genuine link – underpinning the case of the Commission against the Maltese golden passport scheme – is unconvincing and rests on a “tendentious reading of Nottebohm”. Yet, in Commission v Malta, the CJEU may well reinvigorate a European debate about the genuine links that bind us. I, for once, would argue it is high time to make the point that nationality is not just anything a State makes of it.

26. April 2024

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Who is afraid of actio popularis?

If, as the German experience suggests, the actio popularis exclusion serves to bar individuals from invoking objective illegality that does not concern rights, while standing of associations is a way to enforce objective legality despite the actio popularis exclusion, it is hard to see why this should have any relevance for the European Convention of Human Rights. Human rights are, after all, rights.

26. April 2024

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The Paris Effect

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland is a striking example of the Paris effect: the influence of the non-binding collective goals of the Paris Agreement (PA) on the interpretation of domestic constitutional law or international human rights law in climate litigation. The Court’s decision proves to be an essential element in triggering the necessary democratic debates on which the PA relies “from the bottom up”. Reinforcing the procedural limb of Art. 8 ECHR will be an essential step towards further strengthening democratic decision-making in the societal transition to climate neutrality.

25. April 2024

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India’s New Constitutional Climate Right

The Supreme Court of India delivered a historic judgement on climate change and human rights in M.K. Ranjitsinh and Others v. Union of India and Others (hereinafter “M.K. Ranjitsinh”) on March 21, 2024. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice, D.Y. Chandrachud, formulated a new constitutional right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change by drawing upon Article 21 (the fundamental right to life and personal liberty) and Article 14 (the fundamental right to equality) of the Indian Constitution. The final judgement is a remarkable development for the evolution of constitutional climate litigation in India

25. April 2024

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The Ball is in the Game

In 2017 strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) became an important topic on the EU level. As a result, the EU adopted the anti-SLAPP Directive, which shall protect journalists from abusive lawsuits that do not serve justice but only the sinister aim of silencing free press. However, there is important litigation as well. In 2024 the Real Madrid Club de Fútbol vs Le Monde case addressed the problem of exorbitant damages targeting press and introducing a deterrent effect on freedom of speech in transnational cases. From a rule of law and, especially, freedom of the press angle, the case is of paramount importance as it forwards a simple but groundbreaking argument: two of EU law’s most fundamental principles, mutual recognition and freedom of speech, are a strong basis to fight SLAPPs.

24. April 2024

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