On the occasion of his retirement, the Fordham International Law Journal is dedicating this issue on topics concerning European Union law to Jean-Claude Piris, who brilliantly served as Director-General of the Legal Service of the Council for the last twenty-three years. The Legal Service, currently composed of around 120 lawyers, not only provides legal advice [...]

With this cursory description of the European Council prior to the Treaty of Lisbon, this Essay turns to the major changes produced by that treaty. Space considerations require a limited focus. Part I discusses the impact of the European Council’s new status as one of the institutions of the European Union (“EU”). Part II considers [...]

L.E., a thirty-one-year-old woman, left Ireland in July 2009 with her three children and relocated to her childhood home in England. J.McB., the thirty-four-year-old father of these three children, was left behind with no knowledge of their whereabouts. Prior to her abrupt departure from Ireland, L.E. had been in an eleven-year relationship with J.McB., and [...]

This Comment analyzes the expansive holding of Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan. Part I discusses the history of both the state secrets privilege and the Totten bar. Part I also addresses the history of the extraordinary rendition program as well as two recent US circuit court cases, Arar v. Ashcroft and El-Masri v. United States, that [...]

Democracy and democratization at the European level have long been a non-problem. The issues related to democracy after the Second World War were purely national (would Italy and Germany finally be able to build up and consolidate their new democratic systems?) or international (would the Western-type democracies be able to resist and counterweight the Soviet-style [...]

This intends to be a very empirical Essay. It lets the facts (legal facts, but facts nevertheless) speak for themselves. Part I of this Essay first examines the not granting of national treatment by European Union (“EU”)—and EU Member States—law to companies controlled by third-country nationals or other companies. Part II shows that bilateral investment [...]

This Essay will, first, provide a general discussion on the status in Union law of agreements concluded by EU Member States. Second, brief discussions will follow on the specific nature of agreements concluded between the Member States inter se as well as on the special status of agreements concluded before the Member State concerned became [...]

Enlargement of the European Union (“EU” or “Union”) to include Central and Eastern Europe countries ceased to be an option twenty years ago—the European Union was still the European Communities—when the Berlin Wall crumbled down. At that moment enlargement became a must, a political necessity, with the only options left being when and how. This [...]

This is a story that began in early summer 2005 with a violent shock and two big slaps in the face: the first, on May 29, with 54.8% voting no in France, and the second, two days later, on June 1, with 61.6% voting no in the Netherlands. And even the brave people of Luxembourg [...]

This Essay seeks to expose the complexity of the relationship between the United Kingdom (and Ireland, but the main focus will be the UK) and the European Union that resulted from the concessions made to the UK when the treaties of Amsterdam and Lisbon were negotiated: a right not to participate in the adoption and [...]