Articles for tag: Arbitration, Court of Arbitration for Sport, EU Charter, European Charter of Fundamental Rights, FIFA, Judicial Review

Game, Set, Review

The long-standing tension between private sports arbitration and the EU’s system of fundamental rights came to a head on 1 August 2025, when the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in RFC Seraing v. FIFA. The case addresses whether arbitral awards rendered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport can be insulated from review by EU national courts when EU law is at stake. The judgment represents a restrained but meaningful intervention by the CJEU into the autonomy of sports arbitration, seeking to balance the authority of CAS with the imperative of protective fundamentals rights under EU law.

7. August 2025

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Vet Bills and the EU Charter

Over the past decade, concerns about rising veterinary costs and their impact on animal welfare have sparked growing debate across Europe and North America. In the EU, veterinary pricing is largely unregulated, leading to significant variation in costs and transparency across Member States – prompting scrutiny from competition authorities in countries like the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden. If Charter rights, particularly Article 37 on sustainability, are to carry real weight in relation to animals, the current state of the veterinary market in Europe warrants closer examination.

11. Juli 2025

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An Ecofeminist Approach to EU Biodiversity Law

This blog post aims at briefly addressing the issue of hunting as it is regulated in EU biodiversity law using legal ecofeminism as method of analysis. It starts from a reflection on ecofeminism as related to hunting, then argues that EU law, including the EU Charter is inherently anthropocentric, and highlights the ambiguities of EU biodiversity law. By referring to a judgment rendered by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) on the conservation of wolves in 2019, this post encourages an ecofeminist legal reading of EU biodiversity law. E

7. Juli 2025

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The “Best Available Science”

Two recent fisheries disputes reveal that the “best available science” standard is neither singular nor straightforward. Instead, science emerges as contested terrain, shaped by power, uncertainty, and competing truths. These cases could have important implications for the future application of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and its growing relevance for biodiversity and animal protection.

4. Juli 2025

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The Antagonistic Unity of Copyright and Freedom of the Arts

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On 17 June 2025, Advocate General Emiliou delivered his opinion in the second referral of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) to the CJEU in the case “Pelham” – also known as “Metall auf Metall” (Case C-590/23). He defines “pastiche” – currently the most controversial concept of European copyright law – and makes a fundamental statement on EU copyright law and its relationship to freedom of the arts as guaranteed by Art. 13 CFR.The InfoSoc Directive, which is at the heart of EU copyright law, is too restrictive with regard to the artistic use of copyright-protected works and therefore not compatible with the Charter’s freedom of the arts. Emiliou’s opinion is a breakthrough. It grounds copyright in freedom of the arts and paves the way for a new perspective on the relationship between copyright and artistic freedom.

3. Juli 2025

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Rights for Non-Humans in EU Law

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The recognition of animals and nature as potential rights holders has long been a controversial proposition within European legal discourse. However, we believe that the EU legal order is more hospitable to such recognition than one might expect. In a recent article, we argued for a rights-based reinterpretation of EU animal welfare and environmental protection laws. EU constitutional and secondary laws can be construed as entailing legal rights for non-human entities – even if these rights are not explicit the texts. We consider how the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and other EU legal acts may support a post-anthropocentric vision of Union law.

3. Juli 2025

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Animals and the EU Charter

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights remains silent on animal rights, even as a growing number of constitutions worldwide now explicitly protect animals. While the EU already recognises animals as sentient beings under Article 13 TFEU, this recognition has yet to translate into meaningful constitutional safeguards. Embedding animal welfare into the Charter would align the Union with global developments and help move its integration project beyond an overly anthropocentric model.

2. Juli 2025

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A Wolf’s Right to the Surface of the Earth

The European Union recently changed the legal status of the wolf from “strictly protected” to “protected”. In this contribution, I advocate a different response to the problem that wolves prey on animals kept by humans: the further development of the European ecological network called Natura 2000. The premise of my argument, based on animal rights theory and Kant’s philosophy of law, is that wolves have the right to be on Earth. In the past, humans have tried to eradicate wolves, which is a clear violation of this right. I argue that this historical injustice generates the duty to restore the habitats and natural infrastructure used by wolves.

2. Juli 2025

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A Child’s Right to Non-Anthropocentric Education

The European Charter on Fundamental Human Rights is not concerned about animal rights. Although the Charter is silent about animals, it is possible to connect certain human rights it enshrines to animals in a manner that can foment animal rights. The protection of a healthy environment in Article 37 is an obvious choice. A lesser theorized human right in the Charter similarly has considerable potential to benefit animals: the right to education under Article 14.

1. Juli 2025

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A European Charter of Fundamental Human Obligations

The effort to anchor animal rights in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights has gained relevance in light of the widespread commodification of animals within the EU’s market-driven integration process. While commendable in principle, incorporating animal rights into the Charter risks serving a largely symbolic function if it diverts attention from the more pressing task of reconfiguring what I take to be the six foundational institutions of private law in capitalist political economy: property, contract, corporation, tort, labor, and consumption. These institutions reinforce the binary between the human subject and the other-than-human object, a division that enables the commodification of non-human beings.

30. Juni 2025

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