Please find below the journal abstract of “Brexit from a WTO/GATS Perspective: Towards an Easy Divorce?” by Rudolf Adlung, published in Journal of World Trade, Issue 5, Volume 52, 2018 edited by Edwin Vermulst. Virtually all studies dealing with the WTO-related aspects of Brexit, the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) envisaged separation from the European Union, tend to…

As the deadline for Brexit is fast approaching, the UK government published guidance setting out the consequences of a No Deal with the European Union on its exit on 29 March 2019. While the announcement emphasised the priority to reach a deal with the EU, the government sought to provide advice to business and citizens…

In 1997, Fareed Zakaria wrote of illiberal democracies. His concern centred around the freedoms (such as speech, assembly, religion, property) that Zakaria termed ‘constitutional liberalism’. These natural rights held by human beings were to be respected by government. Illiberal democracies casually ignore constitutional limitations and undercut the aforementioned ‘basic’ rights. Zakaria’s observation has offered insight for…

The complexities of the Brexit process are highlighting many divisions in UK law and politics, not least in the UK Parliament itself, as it seeks to legislate in order to supply the necessary legal foundations that provide for Brexit. Having successfully enacted the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018,[1] which received Royal Assent on 26 June…

Please find below the abstract of “The Consequences of the Brexit Vote on Management Attitudes to Recruitment in the Hospitality Industry” by Katy Ferris, Derek Cameron, Andrew Jenkins & James Marson, published in Business Law Review, issue 4, 2018 edited by Lisa Zoltowska   This article investigates the perceptions of managers in the hospitality industry…

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) submitted an application to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) in order to be recognized for collective bargaining in North London. In November 2017, the CAC’s decision denied the “Roos” the right to negotiate their working conditions to the following extent: they are not workers. The reasoning developed…

Please find below the abstract of “Brexit: Trade Governance and Legal Implications for Third Countries” by Martín Molinuevo, published in Journal of World Trade, issue 4, 2018 edited by Edwin Vermulst   The impact of Brexit on the trade relations of EU/UK with third countries is likely to entail an extensive process of amendment to…

The Europa Institute of Leiden University is sixty years old. It was established in 1957, the year in which the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community was signed in Rome. To mark this 60th anniversary, a two-day lustrum conference was held in the Academic Building of the University of Leiden on 30 November and 1 December…

The United Kingdom Supreme court confirmed on 13 June 2018 in the case of Pimlico v Smith what another three lower courts had already decided in the same case: that attempts by employers to label workers as self-employed under elaborate contractual arrangements can be unravelled by the judiciary to benefit the individuals. This decision follows…

We wanted to draw your attention to some interesting articles about the topics of the Regulating for Globalization blog that appeared in the Global Trade and Customs Journal in 2017:   Lorand Bartels, ‘The UK’s WTO Schedules’ (2017) 12, Issue 3 This article argues that the EU’s GATT and GATS schedules are binding on the UK in its…

Deepening Precarity Although it outlines rules for the workplace, employment regulation has also been imbued with perceived potential for economic stimulus. There has been an inherent tension in this dualism that sees the latter given greater importance. The certainty underlying these plans, however, does not match the unpredictability of economic changes. How can employment regulation…

On 15 December 2017, the European Council concluded that ‘sufficient progress’ had been reached in the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the Union to start the second stage of the Brexit procedure. This second stage, scheduled to start this week, should establish a new relationship between the EU-27 and the UK as a third…

As EU-UK negotiations continue on Brexit, a well-known theme re-emerges, the impact of labour regulations on economic growth. As highlighted by David Mangan, UK government policy of ‘lightening’ the burden of employment law on business is a continuing endeavour and is not prevented by EU membership. It has also been argued that the flexibility of…

Employment regulation as an economic stimulus draws attention to the connection between aims and actions. The United Kingdom should remain an intriguing study in this regard. As of 2019, the UK moves into the ‘Global Britain’ or ‘British Way’ era in which the country rebuffs EU-negotiated trade agreements and instead aims to negotiate similar if…

The European Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator Barnier recently stated that the ‘Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement’ (CETA) between the EU and Canada is the only feasible model left for Brexit. If this is so, it is bad news. Inevitably, a CETA-Brexit will be much closer to a hard Brexit than to the glorious bespoken deal…

While the symposium on Application of Competition Policy to Technology and IP Licensing hosted by the Center for Transnational Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Law on 10 November 2017 was, for many reasons, worthy of a suite of scholarly articles (I particularly look forward to Professor Jonathan Barnett’s upcoming article in…

Welcome to the newest Wolters Kluwer law blog, conceived to explore the inter-relationship among labor law, European law, and trade law in these turbulent times. As the editor for trade law I expect this blog to provide a forum to report on timely developments and to offer insight and analysis beyond the facts.  For me,…