scholarly journals A Weaponized Court of Justice in Schrems II

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jeffery Atik ◽  
Xavier Groussot

The U.S.-EU conflict over the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to U.S.-based digital platform companies is marked by a startling legal development: the insertion of a constitutional court squarely into the heart of the dispute. The engagement of the EU’s top court - the Court of Justice (CJEU) - in the Schrems I and Schrems II cases - has significantly inflamed the dispute. The CJEU has now twice struck down GDPR accommodations reached between the United States and the European Union. In doing so, the Court has rebuked both U.S. and EU officials. By transfiguring provisions of the GDPR with constitutional (that is, treaty-based) and human rights values, the Court has placed out of reach any accommodation that does not involve significant reform of U.S. privacy and national security provisions. Heated trans-Atlantic disputes involving assertions of extraterritorial extensions of regulatory power is an inappropriate place for a constitutional court like the CJEU to throw its declarative weight around. 

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (02) ◽  
pp. 105-117
Author(s):  
Jason Jacobs

AbstractWeaponization of state-backed, foreign investments by China is an emerging national security threat in the United States and the European Union. The U.S. and E.U. have espoused similar policy goals—to address the threat without closing their markets to foreign direct investment—while fostering increased cooperation between allied partners in screening transactions.On the surface, the recent, China-specific measures taken by the U.S. and the investment screening framework adopted by the E.U. appear reflective of an alignment of those policy goals. Indeed, many commentators have suggested that is exactly what is happening. However, closer examination reveals a stark divergence. The U.S. has a robust screening mechanism that has evolved into a weapon of economic warfare. The E.U. meanwhile, remains a patchwork of conflicting—or nonexistent—national regulations overlaid by a comparatively toothless investment screening framework.There is a tendency to attribute this divergence to structural differences between the United States and European Union. This in-depth comparison of U.S. and E.U. investment screening mechanisms exposes a split that goes beyond application and into actual policy. This revelation should temper expectations that the E.U. is equipping itself to block transactions that are of concern to the U.S.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudha N. Setty

Published: Sudha Setty, The President's Private Dictionary: How Secret Definitions Undermine Domestic and Transnational Efforts at Executive Branch Accountability, 24 IND. J. GLOBAL LEGAL STUD. 513 (2017)..The 2016 EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is an agreement allowing companies to move customer data between the European Union and the United States without running afoul of heightened privacy protections in the European Union. It was developed in response to EU concerns that the privacy rights of its citizens have been systematically abrogated by the U.S. government in the name of national security, and contains a variety of assurances that the United States will respect and protect the privacy rights of EU citizens.How trustworthy are the U.S. assurances under the Privacy Shield? Both the Bush and Obama administrations secretly interpreted the terms of treaties, statutes and regulations in a manner that allowed them to take controversial actions, keep those actions secret, and later invoke national security to defend the legality of those actions if they became public. In cases involving torture, bulk data collection, and targeted killing, these administrations did so despite the common and objective understanding of applicable legal constraints not providing authorization for the very actions that they claimed were legal.It remains an open question as to whether the Trump administration will interpret the Privacy Shield in a similarly misleading manner: one in which public assurances suggest compliance with the Privacy Shield’s constraints, but the administration’s private interpretation of the Privacy Shield secretly breaches EU privacy protections. This paper considers possible ways to constrain the executive branch from relying on secret interpretations that would undermine the Privacy Shield’s transnational attempts at accountability


Author(s):  
Attarid Awadh Abdulhameed

Ukrainia Remains of huge importance to Russian Strategy because of its Strategic importance. For being a privileged Postion in new Eurasia, without its existence there would be no logical resons for eastward Expansion by European Powers.  As well as in Connection with the progress of Ukrainian is no less important for the USA (VSD, NDI, CIA, or pentagon) and the European Union with all organs, and this is announced by John Kerry. There has always ben Russian Fear and Fear of any move by NATO or USA in the area that it poses a threat to  Russians national Security and its independent role and in funence  on its forces especially the Navy Forces. There for, the Crisis manyement was not Zero sum game, there are gains and offset losses, but Russia does not accept this and want a Zero Sun game because the USA. And European exteance is a Foot hold in Regin Which Russian sees as a threat to its national security and want to monopolize control in the strategic Qirim.


2021 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 451-511

451Economics, trade and finance — European Monetary Union — Fiscal sovereignty — Public debt — Monetary policy — Economic policy — European Union — Asset purchase programme — Quantitative easing — Central banks — European Central Bank — European System of Central Banks — BundesbankTreaties — Treaty-making powers — Constitutional limitations on treaty-making powers — Transfers of powers by States to intergovernmental and other transnational authorities — Whether compatible with constitutional prerogatives of national parliament — Overall budgetary responsibility — Basic Law of GermanyInternational organizations — European Union — Powers — Member States as masters of the treaties — Principle of conferral — Whether Union having competence to determine or extend its own powers — Principle of subsidiarity — Court of Justice of the European UnionRelationship of international law and municipal law — European Union law — Interpretation — Application — Judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — Weiss — Principle of proportionality — Whether application of EU law having absolute primacy — Whether German Federal Constitutional Court having absolute duty to follow judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — Compatibility with Basic Law of Federal Republic of Germany — Openness of German Basic Law to European integration — Whether purchase programme ultra vires — Whether ultra vires acts applicable in Germany — Whether having binding effect in relation to German constitutional organsJurisdiction — European Union institutions — Whether jurisdiction of German Federal Constitutional Court extending to Court of Justice of the European Union and European Central Bank — Whether acts of EU institutions subject to national constitutional review — Ultra vires review — Review of core identity of national constitution — Whether application of EU law having absolute primacy — Whether absolute duty to follow judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — The law of Germany


2004 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Anthony Arnull

The purpose of this article is to consider the effect of the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe on the European Court of Justice (ECJ). At the time of writing, the future of the draft Constitution is somewhat uncertain. Having been finalised by the Convention on the Future of Europe in the summer of 2003 and submitted to the then President of the European Council, it formed the basis for discussion at an intergovernmental conference (IGC) which opened in October 2003. Hopes that the text might be finalised by the end of the year were dashed when a meeting of the IGC in Brussels in December 2003 ended prematurely amid disagreement over the weighting of votes in the Council. However, it seems likely that a treaty equipping the European Union with a Constitution based on the Convention’s draft will in due course be adopted and that the provisions of the draft dealing with the ECJ will not be changed significantly. Even if either assumption proves misplaced, those provisions will remain of interest as reflecting one view of the position the ECJ might occupy in a constitutional order of the Union.


Hypertension ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1029-1035
Author(s):  
Antonia Vlahou ◽  
Dara Hallinan ◽  
Rolf Apweiler ◽  
Angel Argiles ◽  
Joachim Beige ◽  
...  

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became binding law in the European Union Member States in 2018, as a step toward harmonizing personal data protection legislation in the European Union. The Regulation governs almost all types of personal data processing, hence, also, those pertaining to biomedical research. The purpose of this article is to highlight the main practical issues related to data and biological sample sharing that biomedical researchers face regularly, and to specify how these are addressed in the context of GDPR, after consulting with ethics/legal experts. We identify areas in which clarifications of the GDPR are needed, particularly those related to consent requirements by study participants. Amendments should target the following: (1) restricting exceptions based on national laws and increasing harmonization, (2) confirming the concept of broad consent, and (3) defining a roadmap for secondary use of data. These changes will be achieved by acknowledged learned societies in the field taking the lead in preparing a document giving guidance for the optimal interpretation of the GDPR, which will be finalized following a period of commenting by a broad multistakeholder audience. In parallel, promoting engagement and education of the public in the relevant issues (such as different consent types or residual risk for re-identification), on both local/national and international levels, is considered critical for advancement. We hope that this article will open this broad discussion involving all major stakeholders, toward optimizing the GDPR and allowing a harmonized transnational research approach.


Author(s):  
Francisco García Martínez

The creation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) constituted an enormous advance in data privacy, empowering the online consumers, who were doomed to the complete loss of control of their personal information. Although it may first seem that it only affects companies within the European Union, the regulation clearly states that every company who has businesses in the EU must be compliant with the GDPR. Other non-EU countries, like the United States, have seen the benefits of the GDPR and are already developing their own privacy laws. In this article, the most important updates introduced by the GDPR concerning US corporations will be discussed, as well as how American companies can become compliant with the regulation. Besides, a comparison between the GDPR and the state of art of privacy in the US will be presented, highlighting similarities and disparities at the national level and in states of particular interest.


2021 ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Kieron O’Hara

This chapter describes the Brussels Bourgeois Internet. The ideal consists of positive, managed liberty where rights of others are respected, as in the bourgeois public space, where liberty follows only when rights are secured. The exemplar of this approach is the European Union, which uses administrative means, soft law, and regulation to project its vision across the Internet. Privacy and data protection have become the most emblematic struggles. Under the Data Protection Directive of 1995, the European Union developed data-protection law and numerous privacy rights, including a right to be forgotten, won in a case against Google Spain in 2014, the arguments about which are dissected. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) followed in 2018, amplifying this approach. GDPR is having the effect of enforcing European data-protection law on international players (the ‘Brussels effect’), while the European Union over the years has developed unmatched expertise in data-protection law.


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