Articles for category: Europa

Fast Fashion, Slow Transition

In the new ultra-fast fashion era, garment production cycles are accelerated to new heights, while the quality of the garments deteriorates. Key characteristics of the industry are its reliance on cheap manufacturing, overconsumption and short-lived garment use. This blog post will set out who is responsible for the protection of human rights from climate change within the textile industry. In a second step, this blog post aims to analyse the EU Strategy, focusing on the intersection between environmental and social rights in the textile industry.

12. April 2025

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The Human Right to a Healthy Environment from an EU Charter Perspective

Over the last five years, there has been a noticeable turn towards human rights in climate litigation. In the same period, European climate legislation has evolved into a considerable legal framework. This warrants the question of whether there has been a similar turn to human rights before the Court of Justice of the EU – especially as Article 37 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights consecrates the “principle” of environmental protection.

8. April 2025

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Why Recognizing the Right to a Healthy Environment Would Strengthen the Environmental Human Rights Framework under the European Convention on Human Rights

The ECtHR lacks a mandate for general measures aimed at redressing or preventing environmental harm as such. Only the introduction of the environment as the object of human rights protection, through the Right to a Healthy Environment, could trigger the necessary conceptual shift and legitimise the Court and the CoE Committee of Ministers to require member States to take measures such as mitigation of environmental risks and ecological redress.

7. April 2025

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Silencing Greenpeace

In a stark example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), a United States (US) state court compelled Greenpeace to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for facilitating trespass, conversion, nuisance, defamation, and civil conspiracy. The EU has correctly recognized the harm posed by SLAPPs in so far that they diminish civil society’s capacity to represent under- or unrepresented interest groups, and leverage civil law proceedings to stifle dissent in favor of the economically and politically powerful. Now, we will see if the Anti-SLAPP Directive is robust enough to protect European civil society actors from abusive lawsuits.

31. März 2025

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Everything Comes at a Price

The sale of Union citizenship, which is at the heart of the case against Malta currently pending before the ECJ, has been the subject of feverish writing. With the Court’s judgment nearing, this short blogpost will, however, not opine on what the judgment should be. Instead, it considers the potential effects of a judgment that endorses the (ill-conceived) Opinion of AG Collins that Malta’s nationality by investment scheme does not conflict with EU law.

27. März 2025

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Manufacturing Integration

Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recently concluded that Denmark’s so-called Ghetto Law constitutes direct discrimination based on ethnic origin and hence a violation of the Race Equality Directive. This blog highlights the harmful role of the integration narrative underlying the law and other coercive measures addressed towards “non-Western” Danes and non-Danes and the broader implications of the present case for challenging stereotypes embedded in integration policies and practices.

25. März 2025

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Efficiency, but at What Cost

The Commission’s proposal to reform the EU’s legal framework on return is presented as a necessary step to establish a “clear, modern, simplified [system of] […] common rules for managing returns effectively.” This blog post examines whether the proposal lives up to this objective. It assesses the extent to which the proposed changes address the deficits that currently hamper returns and illustrates how the reform would undermine the safeguards of the individuals concerned.

21. März 2025

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Eine teure Busfahrt

Am 26. Februar 2025 hat die Europäische Kommission das erste Omnibus-Paket zur Vereinfachung von EU-Vorschriften im Nachhaltigkeitsbereich veröffentlicht. Es soll Verwaltungskosten einsparen, Komplexität reduzieren und kleine und mittlere Unternehmen entlasten. Dieser Beitrag zeigt, dass sich die geplanten Änderungen allerdings erheblich auf die Durchsetzung der Europäischen Lieferkettenrichtlinie auswirken. Vor allem mit der Streichung der zivilrechtlichen Haftungsnorm in Art. 29 CSDDD würde die Richtlinie einen großen Teil ihrer Durchsetzungskraft verlieren.

18. März 2025

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They Not Like Us

On 13 February 2025, AG Ćapeta delivered a milestone opinion on racial discrimination and migration in the EU when she found the Danish ‘Ghetto Law’ in violation of the Race and Ethnic Equality Directive. She determined that the differentiation between “Western” and “non-Western” immigrants and their descendants in the Danish legislation creates a perceived “ethnic ‘Other’” vis-à-vis the majority population that falls under the anti-discrimination ground of “ethnic origin”. I will explain how her opinion challenges this form of legalized ‘othering’ in migration law, based on the underlying sentiment of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’, as it goes against Art. 2 TEU and the vision of a democratic, tolerant, and anti-racist European society.

10. März 2025

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Funding Europe’s Defence

History is on the move. In just a couple of weeks, Europe has seen its security architecture tested as never before since World War II. Now, the European Union must demonstrate its ability to take control of its own destiny and turn the vision of a common European defence into reality. With ReArm Europe, the Union wants to “meet the moment” and affirm that it is “ready to assume its responsibilities”. While the plan represents a crucial first step towards strengthening European defence, it does not introduce any groundbreaking measures. Its predominant reliance on national defence spending constitutes an important limitation.

5. März 2025

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