in English This diploma thesis explores the ongoing reform of the prospectus regime in the European Union. On 30 November 2015, the European Commission presented a proposal for a new regulation, which is to replace the current so-called Prospectus Directive. The primary aim of this thesis is determine the shortcomings of the current prospectus regime and to critically analyze the proposal in order to determine, whether it addresses these shortcomings and whether it improves the prospectus regime in general. The thesis consists of three main parts: the first introduces the prospectus, its characteristics and current regulation in the EU; the second explores and analyses the proposal itself and makes conclusions on the proposed changes; the third and final part explores the topic of prospectus liability and conflict-of-law rules. Based on the conducted research I arrive at the conclusion that the biggest issues of the current prospectus regime are the high costs connect to the preparation of a prospectus, inflexible disclosure requirements for certain types of issuers, ineffective retail investor protection and diverging implementation of the Prospectus Directive across EU member states. While the European Commission's proposal addresses most of these shortcomings and certainly represents an...

in English This thesis deals with the right to personal data protection as enshrined in Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (the Charter) and its relationship with Article 7 Charter, the right to respect for private and family life. Since both of the rights have immediate relevance for EU data protection, their coexistence in the Charter necessitates an explanation as to their relationship, interaction and the merit of adding an independent right to personal data protection. However, such explanation is difficult to trace. International human rights instruments have traditionally safeguarded the protection of personal data by the right to privacy. The common constitutional traditions of the Member States differ significantly in the enactment of data protection and the EU legislation in force is likewise treating data protection as a privacy subset. The thesis firstly attempts to assess whether the right to personal data protection is capable of autonomous standing, detached from the privacy right and secondly, whether the CJEU allows the right to personal data protection to stand as an autonomous right in reality. To deal with the first research task, the paper analyses the doctrinal sources discussing the personal data-privacy concepts and seeks to identify the value of Article's 8...

This dissertation investigates how legal and policy professionals have legally constructed the economic policy and governance of the EU since the beginning of the Eurozone crisis onwards. It follows the legal and policy professionals who received the mandate to enable and consolidate solutions, as well as defend these solutions in court. By tracing the practices and trajectories of these agents, I show how, during an unfolding crisis, economic policy and governance becomes legally constructed and changes the terms of legitimation for EU economic governance. The stakes involved for the professionals involved also change. In this way, the dissertation speaks to the question of how intrusive political power has been legitimated during the Eurozone crisis and what this means for the legitimacy of European governance. Theoretically, this thesis develops a Bourdieusian field approach that is adapted to the transnational and diachronic context of the Eurozone crisis, as it unfolded from the end of 2009 until the adjudication of key high-profile court cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Drawing on boundary work, bricolage, and network interactions to analyse the practices of legal and policy professionals, the process of enabling and consolidating solutions is elaborated. Attention is given to how this process engenders stakes for the professionals in this emerging euro-crisis law field, and what this means for emerging legal terms of legitimation for economic governance.Methodologically, field-based and social network analysis are combined in two distinct ways. First, by employing a temporally-focussed network analysis, which caters for change by measuring the shifting centrality of legal and policy professionals over time, I show which professionals have had a high-level of involvement in dealing with crisis issues. This then permits the construction of a referral network based on how these professionals refer to their peers. The involvement of the professionals is further articulated as their accumulated symbolic capital: i.e. their involvement together with being perceived to know well. From this, I infer a species of symbolic capital unique to being part of the Eurozone crisis policy response: juridical capital.This dissertation adds to scholarship on the Eurozone crisis by creating a theoretical framework based on Bourdieusian fields, which utilises a network analytical approach to show how the practices and interactions of legal and policy professionals reconfigure the transnational contexts that are implicated in the crisis policy response. Moreover, it is shown how these professionals’ practices enable solutions that are contested before the Court of Justice of the European Union, putting the Court in a position where it has to bring the definitional power of the law to bear on the actions of EU institutions and the Eurogroup. The Court must decide how responsibility should be attributed. The dissertation shows how legal and policy professionals developed practices, using jurisdictional and constitutionalising logics, and deployed at different times during the crisis, enabled and consolidated processes of legal integration and differentiation. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Nowadays, with the development of international economy, international investment has become one of the most important ways to prompt global economic development. The number of the bilateral treaties (BITs) and multilateral treaties are increasing as well. These treaties are an important basis for resolving disputes between investors in international arbitration. Many treaties contain a sunset clause. In the field of international law, the use and utility of sunset clauses has remained largely unnoticed despite the fact that they have been employed in major international treaties and agreements.  Nowadays, such clauses have become a core feature in international investment agreements, playing an underappreciated role with the ability to enhance legal certainly in regards to the tension between stability and flexibility. Moreover, sunset clauses complement the protection to investors with the entrenchment effect.  But meanwhile, as one of the important economic entities in the global economic development, the European Union (EU) is trying to terminate all intra-EU BITs, as well as the sunset clauses which contained in the BITs.  This thesis analyse the impact of the sunset clause on intra-EU arbitration after the EU members terminated their intra-EU BITs. Trying to clarify the nature and the utility of the sunset clause in EU law, and try to disengage from the entrenchment effect of the sunset clause at EU and international level.

Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and can be found in everything from fridges to phones. One of the applications of AI is the police use of facial recognition technology for law enforcement purposes. However, the use poses a major risk to fundamental rights. As part of the European Commission's initiative to create a Union fit for the digital age, the proposal for an AI Act was introduced in 2021 with the aim of setting the limit of permissible use of AI. In the act, the use of real-time facial recognition is prohibited except for a few exceptions which the police in the Union argue will severely hinder their work. However, the scope of the prohibition is ambiguous, and the act is riddled with various problems in its regulation of facial recognition used for law enforcement purposes. This thesis will therefore critically analyse the AI Act on the basis of three research questions. The first question examines how the AI Act will affect current law and the police’s ability to use facial recognition for law enforcement purposes. This thesis finds regarding real-time facial recognition, the act will replace LED as applicable law. However, for high-risk applications of FRT, there will be an interplay between the two regulations. When it comes to the effect on the police’s use of FRT for law enforcement purposes, this thesis finds that the police have no bigger reason for worry. The exceptions make a myriad of otherwise prohibited uses of real-time FRT permissible, and the use of post-FRT is not regulated in the act. The second question analyses the problems with the act and the thesis finds that there are essentially four major problems with the act. The exceptions allow for a disproportionate amount of otherwise prohibited uses of FRT, it is too difficult to interpret and the mechanisms for futureproofing are lacking. Furthermore, the interplay with Prüm II must be considered to a greater extent. The third and final question provides three different solutions to the problems. The first solution is to reduce the scope of the exceptions. The second solution is to revise the high-risk provision to make it easier to add new systems. Finally, this thesis finds that the introduction of a separate regulation for law enforcement use, like GDPR & LED, would be a good solution.

In the thesis the aim was to compare the EU legal system with the Swedish national legal system with specific focus on gender discrimination law. Findings showed Sweden applied discrimination law in accordance with EU directives but went further than what the Gender Recast Directive, and the EU law itself, required of it. Findings also revealed Sweden uses bi- and multilateral agreements to further EU discrimination law. If such agreements are in accordance with EU primary laws, to which Sweden as a member state has agreed to follow when it acceded to the Union, such agreements will be accepted by the Union. Other findings were related to the Union institutions themselves. These institutions are much more co-dependent than was originally thought and the democratic function of the institutions are treaty secured as far as voting in of representatives to the Parliament give EU citizens power to influence legislation of the EU, likewise the European Citizens’ Initiative giving each EU citizen a chance to propose new legislation. Regulations that are deemed, by member states, to be in breach of EU primary law can be tried and interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union and if said regulation is deemed being in breach of EU primary law it can be annulled.

After the Enlargement of the European Union in 2004, around a million Accession State migrants arrived in the United Kingdom, with Polish migrants constituting the largest group. There is a growing body of literature focusing on their migratory patterns, networks, labour market performance, and identity. However, little has been said so far about the Polish migrants' relationship with law in the United Kingdom. This thesis asks: how do the Polish post-2004 EU Enlargement migrants form their relationship with the law, and what are the factors that affect this? It focuses on the intricacies of migrants' choices of `semi-legal' over legal status, subsequent legalization strategies, and the interpretations of legality they result in. Socio-legal integration has so far been viewed solely via state legal frameworks, following the traditional approach of the `law-first' perspective. This thesis argues that it is not the institutional arrangements and legal architecture alone that decide the nature of migrants' semi-legal relationship with law in the host society. A more comprehensive insight into the socio-legal integration of migrants is possible only when we combine in the analysis the interplay between the structural factors of the host country's legal environment, migrants' agency and the culturally derived values, attitudes, behaviour and social expectations towards the law and its enforcement. The thesis therefore makes a case for a `proper' recognition of migrants' legal culture in the study of their socio-legal integration. The thesis concludes that semi-legality, as an initial response to the legal environment is not static, but changing. As a result, migrants' socio-legal integration is extended in time and gradual. Migrants' legality could be discussed at two levels - at the behavioural level and at the level of a value. Changing status between the two poles of legality and illegality brings with it greater appreciation of legality as a value. This research presents a strong argument that the relationship between behaviour and attitudes to law could be meaningfully investigated in an applied domain of the new socio-legal environment.

This thesis investigates competition law, State aid law and free-movement law in their interaction with Article 11 TFEU’s obligation to integrate environmental protection requirements into all activities and policies of the Union. The Article is formulated in broad and sweeping terms which makes integrating environmental protection requirements complex and context-dependent. The challenge of integrating environmental considerations is further increased as such integration in competition, State aid and free- movement law is different from other areas of EU action. The three areas are the core provisions protecting the internal market by prohibiting certain actions of the Member States and undertakings. Unlike in other areas, the EU is therefore not in the position to develop or design the actions but has to scrutinise the measure according to pre-established parameters. To address this challenge, a novel functional approach to environmental integration is developed. The approach should facilitate a better understanding of environmental integration and in particular its application to competition law, State aid and free-movement law. An important element of this thesis equally the comparison between the three areas of law. It sheds light on conceptual issues that are not only relevant to the integration of environmental protection. The comparison advances the understanding in relation to questions such as how restrictions are defined and how the respective balancing tests are applied. The contribution of this research is therefore twofold. One the one hand, it compares how the different tests in competition, State aid and free-movement law operate, thereby offering opportunities for cross-fertilisation. On the other hand, this comparison and the improvements suggested as a result help to conceptualise environmental integration thereby paving the way for a more transparent and consistent integration of environmental protection in competition, State aid and free-movement law.

National Identity as a Corrective of the Absolute Primacy of European Law. The aim of this thesis is to analyse national identity within Article 4(2) TEU and the potential of such article to serve as a legal ground for derogation from obligation imposed by EU law. From a wider perspective, the thesis attempts to assess whether introduction of Article 4(2) TEU redefined the relation between national legal orders and EU law. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with the pivotal principle of EU law primacy. The chapter explains two distinctive approaches adopted by the CJEU (absolute primacy) and the Member States (relative primacy). In the second chapter, the author firstly provides brief history of obligation to respect national identity in the Treaties. Secondly, she examines the content of term "national identity". The author claims that Article 4(2) TEU has a composite (pluralistic) structure, thus, the national courts and the CJEU plays different roles in application of the obligation to respect national identity. The national identity is inherently linked to the constitutional law of Member States, therefore, it must be defined by its constitutional courts. At the same time, the CJEU lacks the competence to interpret national identity as such, however, it is...