Internet intermediaries facilitate a wide range of conduct using services supplied over the layered architecture of modern communications networks. Members of this class include search engines, social networks, internet service providers, website operators, hosts, and payment gateways, which together exert a critical and growing influence upon national and global economies, governments and cultures. This research examines who should face legal responsibility when wrongdoers utilise these services tortiously to cause harm to others. It has three parts. Part 1 seeks to understand the nature of an intermediary and how its liability differs from the liability of primary defendants. It classifies intermediaries according to a new layered, functional taxonomy and argues that many instances of secondary liability in English private law reflect shared features and underlying policies, including optimal loss-avoidance and derivative liability premised on an assumption of responsibility. Part 2 analyses intermediaries’ monetary liability for secondary wrongdoing in two areas of English law: defamation and copyright. It traces the historical evolution of these doctrines at successive junctures in communications technology, before identifying and defending limits on that liability which derive from three main sources: (i) in-built limits contained in definitions of secondary wrongdoing; (ii) European safe harbours and general limits on remedies; and (iii) statutory defences and exceptions. Part 3 examines intermediaries’ non-monetary liability, in particular their obligations to disclose information about alleged primary wrongdoers and to cease facilitating wrongdoing where it is necessary and proportionate to do so. It proposes a new suite of non-facilitation remedies designed to restrict access to tortious internet materials, remove such materials from search engines, and reduce the profitability of wrongdoing. It concludes with several recommendations to improve the effectiveness and proportionality of remedies by reference to considerations of architecture, anonymity, efficient procedures, and fundamental rights.

This thesis explores the notion of the employer in English employment law. It seeks to develop a functional reconceptualisation of that notion in the hope of overcoming the theoretical and practical problems resulting from the tensions inherent in the current approach. The first part of the thesis analyses the notion of the employer as counterparty to the contract of employment. Two conflicting strands emerge: the employer is simultaneously identified as a single party to a bilateral contract (the unitary strand) and defined through the exercise of a range of employer functions (the multi-functional strand). As a result of this tension, full employment law coverage is restricted to a narrow paradigm scenario where a single legal entity exercises all employer functions. Modern economic developments, from the rise of employment agencies and service companies to corporate groups and Private Equity investors, have however increasingly led to the joint exercise of such functions across multiple entities. The second part illustrates the practical implications of these developments: regulatory obligations are placed on inappropriate entities, and workers may even find themselves without recourse to any employment law protection. An additional chapter compares this situation with the notion of the employer in German law, where a sophisticated apparatus has been developed in order to address the particular challenges of employment in multi-entity scenarios, in particular in corporate groups. On the basis of these observations the final part of the thesis then proposes a reconceptualised notion. The employer is defined as the entity, or combination of entities, exercising functions regulated in a particular domain of employment law. Each of the two strands of the current notion is addressed in turn to demonstrate how this more openly multi-functional approach addresses the rigidities of the current notion without abandoning an underlying unitary conceptualisation. It is hoped that the resulting notion of the employer will be able to place employment law obligations on the entity, or combination of entities, exercising the relevant employer functions, regardless of the formal legal organisation of the enterprise in question.

This thesis asks how manifestation of religious belief by religious individuals can best be protected in English law. It is particularly concerned with the protection available to religious individuals in the public sphere. This thesis assesses the current state of protection under religious freedom and religious discrimination models, before considering the potential for increasing protection by reconceptualising the right to manifest religious belief as an aspect of freedom of expression. This thesis asks whether the practical and conceptual limitations of a religious freedom model, and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in particular, can be overcome by reliance on alternative modes of protection, namely religious discrimination protections in domestic, Convention, and EU law, or through litigating religious manifestation claims as freedom of expression cases under Article 10 of the ECHR. The difficulty of communicating the harm in being denied the ability to manifest religious beliefs publicly is a key limitation of both religious freedom and religious discrimination models. Similarly, this thesis highlights the difficulty in assessing what weight should be attributed to such religious harm within a proportionality exercise balancing the rights of religious individuals with the rights and interests of other parties. The analysis in this thesis draws primarily upon the sources of law which shape domestic English law in this area, namely the ECHR and European Union law. However, this thesis also considers foreign precedent and case law from the United States in particular. This thesis contends that no one model can address the range of cases where manifestation of religious beliefs arise, and that litigants should be able to draw from religious freedom, religious discrimination, and freedom of expression protections depending on the nature of their case.

1 Abstract - Europeanisation of Criminal Law The Europeanization of criminal law is a convergent process of national criminal orders. This paper focus on a progress made within the political hybrid - the European Union that had no competences in this field in the beginning. Firstly, I present the evolution of the primary law up to the present situation. Next there is an overview of the EU Agencies. The core of this work is to present the newest changes set up by Lisbon Treaty and Stockholm Programme and to chart the evolution of the cooperation that I try to evaluate in the conclusion. The Criminal Law represents a highly particular area of the international cooperation because this legal subject is considered to be one of the most basic elements of the state sovereignty. Thus, any external intervention to the national criminal law presents a hit to the state sovereignty. Another obstacle to the international cooperation in the criminal affairs is the diversity of national criminal orders. Besides, this diversity is believed to be an expression of national peculiarities and any attempt to unify anything in this area is considered to be an effort to repress national differences. We can not deny the symbolic value of the national codifications. Anyway, the biggest problem to the international cooperation is...

Both, the European Union legal order and the World Trade Organization law represent important examples of the supranational legal system. This thesis focuses on their mutual relationship, in concrete through the perspective of the EU law. It aims to analyse how the European law approaches the WTO rules and which effects are granted to them. Introductory chapter provides the reader with a wider perspective of the examined topic dealing with relationship of the European law and the public international law in general. It presents the historical development as well as the current status of the relationship. Attention is brought to relevant provisions of the EU law and related case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It also outlines a theoretical background of the issue. Chapter Two focuses in a more specific way on the position of WTO norms in the EU legal order. Firstly, it briefly defines the WTO law while reflecting the specifics in regard of the EU. Afterwards, it is examined, which effects are granted to the WTO rules in the European law, particularly through the reasoning of the CJEU. The last chapter puts the results of the analysis into a wider context and sketches the background of the topic at hand. That provides inputs for a final evaluation of the current status and an...

General and individual exemptions in the provision of state aid under European law This diploma thesis refers to the European regulation of the provision of state aid by member states. Because of the fact that under certain circumstances state aid can affect the economic competition among concurrents both within a member state and within the internal market of the EU and thus have a significant bad influence on it, art. 107 subsection 1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) states a general interdiction of providing state aid by the memeber states. It defines state aid as financial aid in any form (direct grant, soft loan, tax allowance, interest subsidy etc.), payed out of financial ressources belonging to the state ("state" defined in a large sense as both the central state sphere and local government sphere), which give preferential treatment to certain companies or certain production sectors and thereby affects or may affect competition, and lastly which have an influence on business between the member states (have an effect on the internal market). Of course there have to be exemptions from this general interdiction. The exemptions are regulated in art. 107 subsection 2 TFEU (general exemptions) and 3 TFEU (individual exemptions). There are three general exemptions:...

La législation sur les clauses abusives, issue de l’article L. 132-1 du Code de la consommation, est d’application quotidienne. La notion de clause abusive n’en demeure pas moins confuse. Il est vrai que trente-cinq années d’applications erratiques ont contribué à la rendre peu accessible et peu prévisible, ce qui nuit à la sécurité juridique. Pour restaurer cette notion, une double démarche s’impose. Il faut, d’abord, la délimiter afin de réserver son application uniquement aux personnes qui méritent d’être protégées contre les clauses abusives et aux seules stipulations qui créent véritablement un déséquilibre significatif entre les droits et obligations des parties au contrat. La notion de clause abusive apparaît alors comme un mécanisme destiné à sanctionner les abus de la liberté contractuelle dans les contrats de consommation. Il faut, ensuite, procéder à l’identification de la notion de clause abusive en cherchant à définir et à caractériser le standard du déséquilibre significatif, notamment à l’aune des critères dégagés de la pratique. Chemin faisant, la notion de clause abusive s’impose comme une notion incontournable du droit de la consommation et, plus largement du droit des contrats, notamment en ce qu’elle participe au renouveau de la théorie générale du contrat. / The legislation on unfair terms set out by Article L. 132-1 of the French Consumer Code is applied on a daily basis. The notion of unfair terms nevertheless remains unclear. Thirty-five years of inconsistent and erratic application have indeed contributed to making this legislation inaccessible and difficult to predict, thereby damaging legal security. The reinforcement of this notion necessitates a two-pronged approach. First of all, the concept must be delimited in order to restrict application solely to those individuals requiring protection against unfair terms and only to those terms that genuinely do generate a material imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties to the contract. The notion of unfair terms then becomes a mechanism aimed at sanctioning abuses of contractual freedom in consumer agreements. The concept must then be identified, by seeking to define and characterize the standard of material imbalance, in particular against the yardstick of criteria generated by practical application. In doing so, the notion of unfair terms becomes a central notion of consumer law and, more widely, of contract law, in particular with regard to its participation in the renewal of general contract theory.

La crise européenne des dettes souveraines est l'occasion de constater l'instauration de nouveaux rapports entre puissances publiques nationales et marchés financiers. A la fois acteur et arbitre de la confrontation des forces du marché, l'Etat se trouve pris dans une logique concurrentielle, libérale et internationaliste qui menace sa capacité à rester la principale source d'édiction de la réglementation financière. Dans un contexte de globalisation et d'autonomisation de la sphère financière, ainsi qu'en raison des impératifs d'efficience et de compétitivité économique qui pèsent sur le droit financier, la notion même de " droit financier français " perd progressivement de son sens. Le renforcement impressionnant de l'action européenne en la matière, l'importation systématique des solutions juridiques anglo-américaines, ou encore la délégation croissante de l'édiction des normes aux experts, menacent le maintien d'un droit financier véritablement français, distinct des autres réglementations nationales. Sans doute, la régulation a vocation à changer d'échelle de manière durable et irréversible, pour accompagner l'intégration internationale des marchés financiers et épouser leur nouvelle dimension régionale, voire mondiale. Plus généralement, les modalités contemporaines de production de la norme financière disqualifient l'appareil étatique comme une source pertinente d'édiction des règles, qui sont toujours plus fines, expertes et évolutives, sans avoir pour autant perdu leur dimension politique. Tel est le dilemme fondamental de la régulation financière moderne, vouée à réconcilier la pertinence économique avec la légitimité démocratique. / The current European sovereign debts crisis is a good opportunity to observe the brand new balance of powers between national public authorities and financial markets. Both an actor and an arbitrator of the interaction between market forces, the State is increasingly following a competitive, liberal and internationalist approach to regulation that threatens its ability to remain the main source of enactment of financial rules. In a context of globalization and empowerment of the financial sphere, and under the economic imperatives of efficiency and competitiveness, the very notion of "French financial law" is losing its significance. The recent and impressive strengthening of the European financial legislation, the systematic importation of Anglo-American legal solutions, as well as the increasing delegation of the law-making to experts, all contribute to threaten the survival of a truly French financial law, distinct from other national regulations. Clearly, financial regulation is on the verge of a new international scaling to sustain the integration of financial markets and adapt to their regional, not to say global, dimension. More broadly, the modern methods of financial law-making tend to discredit the State as a relevant source to enact financial rules, themselves increasingly precise, expert and adaptive, while still quite political. Such is the key dilemma of modern financial regulation, bound to reconcile economic relevance and democratic legitimacy.

With regard to the gradual economic globalisation markets of States become more and more interconnected, especially so in the European Union which aims to create a single internal market without internal borders and barriers to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Naturally, it influences behaviour of economic participants on the market. With increase of competition it is necessary to be more innovative, active and to search for new opportunities for expansion not only in one's own State but also abroad which entails entering into relations with foreign entities. In the course of time it might be useful or even necessary to relocate the place of business. Such need might not and, indeed, does not concern only natural person but also legal entities such as companies. However, the status of companies in cross-border relations has some specific features in comparison to the status of natural persons. A company is only an artificial product of law, a mere legal fiction, and therefore, its existence is much more closely linked with a specific legal order. A company has legal personality only insofar as some legal order acknowledges it. Different approaches how to link a company to a certain State have been evolved in different States - either the connecting factor is the statutory...

L’eau en tant que ressource naturelle en mouvement permanent est difficilement saisissable par le droit. La pénurie de cette ressource demeure un problème majeur dans certaines régions du sud de l’Europe et plus particulièrement en Espagne, en France et en Italie. Devant ce défi, une protection juridique renforcée s'impose par nécessité .Le droit est-il en mesure d’assurer à cette ressource une telle protection à travers un statut spécifique qui tienne compte de son caractère vital et rare? Ce travail s’inscrit principalement dans une perspective de droit comparé entre les systèmes juridiques français, italien et espagnol, étudiés à la lumière du droit de l’Union européenne ayant favorisé une standardisation de la protection de l’eau, même si elle demeure insuffisante. La domanialisation et la patrimonialisation de l’eau, ainsi que la reconnaissance progressive d’un droit à l’eau potable et à l’assainissement sont les solutions proposées par les droits publics étudiés. La question de l’effectivité et de l’efficacité de la protection publique de l’eau est au cœur de l’étude et invite à s’interroger sur les acteurs de la mise en œuvre de la protection de la ressource en eau ainsi que sur un partage des compétences souvent complexe. Dans cette perspective, le rôle du juge administratif et des juges des eaux publiques en matière d’application effective des normes protectrices de la ressource en eau est fondamental. Ainsi, la question de l’effectivité de la protection s’est imposée, car elle découle tant de son caractère préventif que du caractère répressif des sanctions appliquées en cas de dommages causés à la ressource en eau. / Water as a natural resource in constant motion is difficult to grasp by the law. The shortage of this resource remains a major problem in parts of southern Europe, particularly in Spain, France and Italy. Faced with this challenge, enhanced legal protection is necessary with force. Is the law able to guarantee this resource protection through a special status that respects its vital and rare character? The purpose of this piece of work is mainly to set a comparative law perspective between the French, Italian and Spanish legal systems, studied in the light of the law of the European Union which promoted a standardization of water protection, even if it remains insufficient. The public domain, the concept of heritage, and the gradual recognition of the right to drink water and sanitation are the solutions proposed by the legal systems studied. The question of the effectiveness and efficiency of public water protection is at the heart of the study. It raises questions about the actors in the implementation of the protection of water, as well as an often complex sharing of skills. In this perspective, the role of the administrative judge and judges of public waters in terms of effective enforcement of protective standards for water is fundamental. So the question of the effectiveness of protection raises central, because it follows both the preventive character and the repressive nature of the sanctions imposed in the case of damaging the water resources.