The Journal for European, Private International and Comparative Law (Zeitschrift für Europarecht, Internationales Privatrecht und Rechtsvergleichung – ZfRV) just released its latest issue. It includes two interesting articles.
The first, published in English and authored by Leszek Bosek and Grzegorz Żmij, is titled “On the CETA’s compatibility with European Union law in light of Opinion No 1/17 of the Court of Justice of 30 April 2019” (ZfRV 2020, p. 248). The summary reads:
The CJEU’s opinion No 1/17 regarding the CETA’s compatibility with European Union law is an important document demonstrating the evolution of the Court’s position when faced with the challenges of the world’s economic globalisation and the effect of various factors related to it on its case law. In our view, the Court of Justice has not sufficiently explained why it has departed from the principal determinations laid down in its Opinions Nos 2/13 and 1/09 and the Court’s judgement in the Achmea case, which were demonstrably in accordance with the line of the Court’s case law consistently defined by its subsequent judgements to date, demarcating in a clear way the fundamental constitutional principles of EU legal and judicial order. In particular, it is hard to accept as satisfactory its contention that the CETA tribunals will not apply or interpret the EU’s or Member States’ law, requiring a uniform interpretation in accordance with the rules laid down in Article 267 of the TFEU, which does not agree with observations from the international investment arbitration practice. The solutions adopted in the CETA seem to be pragmatic, but may raise doubts from the point of view of Article 19 of the TEU and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the corresponding guarantees in the constitutions of Member States. Those issues have not been sufficiently tackled by the Court of Justice.
The second article, published in German by Caroline Kohlhaupt, deals with the change of the Consumer Rights Directive’s substantive scope of application through the Omnibus Directive (“Die Änderung des sachlichen Anwendungsbereichs der Verbraucherrechte-RL 2011/83/EU durch die Omnibus-RL (EU) 2019/2161”, ZfRV 2020, p. 276). The summary reads:
The Directive (EU) 2019/2161 brings various amendments to the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU. When it comes to the material scope of Directive 2011/83/EU, especially the following clarification is substantial: The Directive shall – in principle – also apply where the trader supplies or undertakes to supply digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium or a digital service to the consumer and the consumer provides or undertakes to provide personal data to the trader.
Dear Prof. Lehmann,
thank you for the presentation. Especially the second Article falls within my latests scientific interests.
Prof. Dr. Dimitrios K. Stamatiadis