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The EU Sustainability Directive and Jurisdiction
The Draft for a Corporate Sustainable Due Diligence Directive currently contains no rules on jurisdiction. This creates inconsistencies between the scope of application of the Draft Directive and existing jurisdictional law, both on the EU level and on the domestic level, and can lead to an enforcement gap: EU companies may be able to escape the existing EU jurisdiction; non-EU companies may even not be subject to such jurisdiction. Effectivity requires closing that gap, and we propose ways in which this could be achieved.
(authored by Ralf Michaels and Antonia. Sommerfeld and crossposted at https://eapil.org/)
- The Proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence
The process towards an EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is gaining momentum. The EU Commission published a long awaited Proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD), COM(2022) 71 final, on 23 February 2022; the EU Council adopted its negotiation position on 1 December 2022; and now, the EU Parliament has suggested amendments to this Draft Directive on 1 June 2023. The EU Parliament has thereby backed the compromise textreached by its legal affairs committee on 25 April 2023. This sets off the trilogue between representatives of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
No Sunset of Retained EU Conflict of Laws in the UK, but Increased Risk of Sunburn
By Dr Johannes Ungerer, University of Oxford
The sunset of retained EU law in the UK has begun: the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 received Royal Assent at the end of June. The Act will revoke many EU laws that have so far been retained in the UK by the end of 2023.
The good news for the conflict of laws is that the retained Rome I and II Regulations are not included in the long list of EU legal instruments which are affected by the mass-revocation. Both Regulations have been retained in the UK post-Brexit by section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and were modified by the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and Non-Contractual Obligations (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (as amended in 2020). The retained (modified) Rome I and II Regulations will thus be part of domestic law beyond the end of 2023. Yet this retained EU law must not be called by name anymore: it will be called “assimilated law” according to section 5 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (although the title of this enactment, like others, will strangely continue to contain the phrase “Retained EU Law” and will not be changed to “Assimilated Law”, see section 5(5)).
The CJEU on Procedural Rules in Child Abduction Cases: private international law and children’s rights law
Comment on CJEU case Rzecznik Praw Dziecka e.a., C-638/22 PPU, 16 February 2023)
Written by Tine Van Hof, post-doc researcher in Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law at the University of Antwerp, previously published on EU live
The Court of Justice of the EU has been criticised after some previous cases concerning international child abduction such as Povse and Aguirre Zarraga for prioritising the effectiveness of the EU private international law framework (i.e. the Brussels IIa Regulation, since replaced by Brussels IIb, and the principle of mutual trust) and using the children’s rights law framework (i.e. Article 24 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of the child’s best interests) in a functional manner (see e.g. Silvia Bartolini and Ruth Lamont). In Rzecznik Praw Dziecka the Court takes both frameworks into account but does not prioritise one or the other, since the frameworks concur.
News
Out Now: Gridel, Financial Markets and Instruments in Private International Law. A European and French Perspective A European and French Perspective
The multiple-award-winning book by Augustin Gridel (Université de Lorraine), Marchés et instruments financiers en droit international privé (Bruylant 2023), has just been published in English under the title Financial Markets and Instruments in Private International Law. A European and French Perspective. It features a preface by Louis D’Avout and a foreword by Christine Lagarde.
Report of the Oxford Conference on “Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws”
The author of this report is Meltem Ece Oba (Koç University, Istanbul). The post is being published simultaneously on Conflictoflaws.net and on the EAPIL blog.
On 20-21 March 2025, a conference on “Characterisation in the Conflict of Laws” was convened at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. Under the auspices of the Institute of European and Comparative Law in the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford, the conference was jointly organised by Dr Johannes Ungerer (University of Oxford and Notre Dame University in England), Dr Caterina Benini (Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan) and PD Dr Felix Berner (University of Tübingen). The conference brought together scholars and practitioners from several jurisdictions around the world.
Summer School ‘Consumer and Market Law in the European Circular Economy’
Registration is now open for the Summer School ‘Consumer and Market Law in the European Circular Economy’ which will be held from 9 to 18 July 2025: 9-11 July online and 14-18 July in presence at the University of Udine, Italy.
The Summer School is organised by the University of Udine, in cooperation with a consortium of European universities, including University of Essex, De Montfort University of Leicester, University of West Timisoara, East Anglia University, University of Rijeka, University of Belgrade and University of Szeged, within the framework of the Jean Monnet Module CoME CircLE.
The 2025 Summer School will consist of 40 hours of lectures, a workshop and a moot court. Attendees will be offered a comprehensive training on the legal discipline of consumer protection and market regulation in the EU Law, with a particular reference to circular economy, taking into account the following relevant topics: Consumer protection and empowerment issues; Private international law issues; Dispute resolution and redress issues; and Market regulation.
Eligible are undergraduate students, graduatestudents and PhD students, studing Law, Economics, Political Science or International Relations. Application deadline is 31 May 2025, 12.00 pm GMT. Those who are interested in applying, need to fill in the application form and submit it to ip.europeanlaw.uniud@gmail.com.
For details see the programme and the call for application.