Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe lobbying of other countries' political and legal elites has emerged as a security risk globally. The securitization of foreign lobbying has prompted the adoption of specialized legal regimes, that is, foreign transparency laws, to enable the scrutiny of how foreign actors lobby. This article analyzes and compares such laws in the United States, Australia and the European Union (EU) with respect to three issues: (1) the definition of a foreign actor, (2) the definition of a type of foreign lobbying and (3) the definition of a protected normative good. While the impetus to legislative reform has often rested on a concern with authoritarian governments, the foreign transparency laws capture diverse kinds of foreign influence activities and actors. They may thus catch in their nets actors or types of influence never intended to be caught in the first place. This has particularly significant implications for the EU as a polity and foreign policy actor.

AbstractThis legal comparative article analyzes the regulatory framework of lobbying services provided by law firms in the European Union and the USA. The comparison of regulation between the jurisdictions focuses on three aspects: (1) the definition of lobbying, (2) the legal advice exception, and (3) alignment with bar association rules. While the EU and the USA are largely aligned on the first two points, the differences emerge with respect to the third. The EU regulatory framework ignores lawyers' professional obligations, which, together with the bar associations' half-hearted embrace of lobbying rules, is found to be the main reason why law firms in the EU fly under the regulatory radar. With lawyers increasingly becoming involved in the lobbying and advocacy market, the EU and its Member States need to bring their rules on par with the US regulatory model that acknowledges bar association rules as lobbying regulation.

AbstractThe EU's openness towards stakeholders is central to the legitimacy of its law-making. With the rapid globalisation of EU legislative activities, openness towards actors from third countries requires analysis. With reference to the notion of 'lobbying', this article outlines a framework for identifying the role of third country actors in EU policy processes. The two arguments brought forward suggest that third country lobbying is facilitated by the openness of Union law- and policy-making, and that third country actors contribute to EU decision-making at all stages. The article concludes with a set of questions that third country lobbying raises concerning the EU's legitimate law-making authority in Europe and beyond.

New modes of governance are proliferating at all levels, most prominently in the EU. One main characteristic of new governance is adjustability and revisability in the form of soft law. The non-binding nature of soft law is said to contribute to flexibility and diversity in Member States and to secure national autonomy. However, this article argues that while soft law may not be legally binding, it nevertheless has legal effects that throw flexibility and diversity of national action into doubt. Beginning by demonstrating that soft law may have discernible effects on practices in Member States, at the same time restricting Member State choices, the article goes on to develop a categorisation of those effects and to document them in detail. These are: judicial recognition by the European courts, explicit terms of soft law instruments, which demand special types of national implementing measures, the role played by non-state actors, and hybrid forms of regulatory instruments comprising soft and hard law provisions. The analysis shows a need to add variety to existing research on EU soft law, which has traditionally focused on the role of the judiciary in giving legal effects to soft law. Instead, we should be more attentive to the other three factors when discussing soft law. Besides the more holistic approach, research should also analyse soft law in a more case-specific manner in order to fully grasp the implications of choice of soft law in a domestic legal system.

In the coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world, the Finnish Government, like many of its peers, has issued policy measures to combat the virus. Many of these measures have been implemented in law, including measures taken under the Emergency Powers Act, or by ministries and regional and local authorities exercising their legal powers. However, some governmental policy measures have been implemented using non-binding guidelines and recommendations. Using border travel recommendations as a case study, this article critically evaluates governmental soft law-making. The debacle over the use of soft law to fight the pandemic in Finland revealed fundamental misunderstandings about the processes and circumstances under which instruments conceived as soft law can be issued, as well as a lack of attention to their effects from a fundamental rights perspective.

Special issue published online 31st January 2019 in cooperation with the Network of Empirical Legal Scholars ; Interviews are commonly used as a research method in social and political science, where they are considered an effective means to elicit information on political and social behaviour. Interviews are less frequently used in legal research outside characteristically 'socio-legal' or 'empirical legal' research, which is a type of legal research that relies on qualitative or quantitative methods. Drawing on the authors' own experiences from conducting and using interviews with legal professionals as a source of legal research in the context of EU law, this article offers both a theoretical contribution and some practical insights. Theoretically, it builds on the existing literature on 'expert' interviews by examining lawyer interviews as a particular form of 'expert' investigations. We argue that interviews with lawyers pose particular challenges, which have been ignored and overlooked in general discussions on expert interviews. These challenges relate to access, confidentiality and control of research data, each of which is discussed in detail.

EU agencies have become key actors in the operationalization of the EU regime on public access to documents. A tension between confidentiality and transparency has become particularly evident in the framework of regulatory procedures concerning chemical substances, food, and medicinal products. Applicants must provide EU agencies with commercially sensitive information to trigger the scientific and technical evaluation needed for marketing authorization or approval. We analyse three EU agencies: European Chemicals Agency, European Food Safety Agency, and European Medicines Agency. They hold information that is both commercially sensitive and highly relevant for EU regulators and the public at large. Using decisions of the EU courts and the European Ombudsman, this article shows how a new "ownership" paradigm seems to have evolved, in conflict with EU public access legislation. New rulings on the Aarhus regime suggest that more information should in the future become disclosable, putting the agencies under increased pressure by companies trying to protect industry know-how. EU agencies are constantly arbitrating between conflicting public interests. As the exercise of political discretion is exactly what EU agencies are not expected to do, the situation calls for legislative intervention.