In a judgment published earlier today, the Supreme Court of Ireland has confirmed that some forms of collective agreements may be extended erga omnes across economic sectors, thereby helping to bring the benefits of collective bargaining to more people working in Ireland. This note gives a brief background to the colourful history of collective sectoral…
In 2015, the Irish Parliament overhauled the various statutory workplace dispute resolution systems which had been established over the previous 70 years and largely replaced them with a single Workplace Relations Commission (“WRC”). However, a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Ireland raised a number of constitutional problems with this system, requiring the amendment…
Striving to become the first climate neutral continent globally, the European Union announced the European Green Deal to decouple economic growth from resource use with just and inclusive transition. With the aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by at least 55% by 2030, an Open, Sustainable and Assertive Trade Strategy was communicated by the…
In early April 2021, a draft EU Regulation on a European Approach to Artificial Intelligence was leaked to the press. The draft had been already attentively commented, among others, by Dr Michael Veale (UCL Faculty of Laws). The draft Regulation, however, raised many specific concerns about the use of AI at work to be addressed…
The EU is slowly but surely setting the stage for new legislation on supply chain due diligence that will be expansive in its reach and global in its impact. As it makes human rights’ due diligence a business imperative, the EU will send a signal that it is willing to harness the rules of the…
The promise of 5G Fifth-generation wireless systems – commonly known as 5G – are a big leap forward for mobile communications. The innovations connected to 5G could be worth around $13.2 trillion over the next 15 years for the industry and public sector. By 2025, deploying the new technology could generate €213 billion in revenue…
Will offices close in favour of telework/remote work? It is unclear whether telework/remote work will be taken up (where feasible) in a significant manner once businesses more widely re-open. The question of continued use of office space (as well as in what capacity and size) has been posed and widely noted in newsmedia with attention-grabbing…
Valerio De Stefano,* Ilda Durry,* Harry Stylogiannis,* Mathias Wouters* The debates on platform work have come a long way since the early publications in the first part of the last decade. For a long time, many commentators agreed with the words of Judge Vince Chhabria in the Californian case about the ride-hailing platform Lyft:…
EU Investment Court System The Investment Court System (“ICS”) included in the European Union (“EU”)’s recent investment and trade agreements with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico (together, the “EU Agreements”) provides for the creation of a permanent first instance tribunal and an appellate tribunal drawn from a pre-selected roster of tribunal members. In this regard,…
The central theme of the 18th International Conference in Commemoration of Professor Marco Biagi, held online 16-19 March 2021 by the University of Modena, was “Protecting Autonomous Work”. I had the honour to chair one of the workshops, entitled “Innovation, Autonomy and (Pseudo) Managerial Legitimations: The Equivocal Paths of Operational Autonomy in EU Academia”. In…
Is there any practical value to international agreements without enforcement instruments? And can the multilateral rules of the world trade system hold the trust of the member states, so that they continue to adhere to the mutual benefits and obligations under WTO law – even if the WTO dispute settlement system is totally or even…
In its judgment of 16 February 2021 in Hanan v Germany, [1] the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘the ECtHR’) confirmed that the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the ECHR’) applies extraterritorially to the conduct of armed forces deployed abroad by Contracting States. The case thus presents important findings on the question…
Click here for Part I Blowin’ in the wind. (Or the failed promises of the WTO’s Sustainable Development Agenda) The trumpets of Sustainable Development blew heartily at the creation of the WTO, which succeeded the GATT in 1994, just two years after the Rio Summit. For starters, The Marrakech Agreement establishing the WTO[1] explicitly listed…
At the end of 2020, the long overdue conclusion of the fisheries subsidies negotiation was once again postponed in the WTO. Any reasonable observer would have long ago concluded that the environment was the “the lost cause” in this organisation. Reasons to think so are many. Yet there are also strong grounds to believe the…
Reclassification of ‘gig’ workers in California The State of California passed a law in force as of 1 January 2020 that classified ‘gig’ workers as employees of the platforms engaging their services ‘unless the hiring entity demonstrates that the person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the…
On January 8, 2021, a South Korean district court ordered the Japanese government to pay compensation to a group of former “comfort women (慰安婦),” also known as victims of sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. The court denied sovereign immunity to Japan and ruled that the Treaty on…
In two previous blog posts (one here on this blog and an earlier one on EU Law Analysis) I pre-emptively commented on the possible legal construction of professional qualification recognition post-Brexit. Now that the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has been published, it is appropriate to describe and critically reflect upon the actual legal construction…
President-elect Biden’s victory has been met with relief by many in the international trade community. Despite a plethora of obstacles he faces, Biden is expected to conduct U.S. international trade policy in a different way, including the use of multilateral approaches rather than “going it alone,” diplomacy instead of taunts and insults, collaboration not flying…
On December 11, 2019, the European Union proposed the European Green Deal, which included a statement that “should differences in levels of ambition worldwide persist, as the EU increases its climate ambition, the Commission will propose a carbon border adjustment mechanism, for selected sectors, to reduce the risk of carbon leakage.” This blog entry provides…
Introduction In an earlier post on this blog (here), I commenced my analysis of the recognition of professional qualifications of migrants at work in the EU by describing and reflecting upon those provisions of EU migration and asylum law governing such recognition. In this blog post, I complete my analysis of qualification recognition by describing…
