ELI on CESL - report available

The report of the European Law Institute's Working Party on the Common European Sales law is now available on the ELI's website. You can follow this link to download the report.

For an informative summary, please refer to Eric Clive's post on the European Private Law News blog.

ELI on CESL

Last week, the Council of the European Law Institute (ELI) endorsed the ELI Working Party's Statement on the proposal for a Common European Sales Law:

'The Working Party critically examined the CESL, making a number of practical recommendations designed to facilitate the achievement of its underlying policy objectives, which include enhancing the viability of the EU’s internal market through facilitating cross-border trade, both in respect of business to consumer transactions and business to business transactions; securing a high and uniform level of consumer protection across the European Union; maximising the opportunities which can accrue to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from an effective internal market; maintaining the EU’s policy of non-discrimination against consumers and businesses from third countries; and maintaining, except in defined circumstances, freedom of contract.'

The full text of the Statement will be made available on the ELI's website shortly. The site also offers more information on the upcoming ELI conference and general assembly that will take place in Brussels on 28 and 29 of September.

Towards a European legal culture

The European Law Institute that was inaugurated in June (with a conference on which we posted earlier) has now officially opened its office in Vienna. Commissioner Reding was present at the first working meeting, dedicated to the proposal for a Common European Sales Law, and observed that:

'The European Law Institute will help build a European legal culture. More consistency between Europe's different legal systems will help strengthen mutual trust and our citizens' confidence in the EU's legal system, strengthening confidence in the European rule of law, which is the cement binding the European Union together. It will make the European area of justice concrete and real so that people can exercise their rights and take advantage of the Single Market's opportunities. The Institute will also bring added value to research on how EU law is implemented across the Union. It will engage in projects that will have concrete results for the daily lives of European citizens and legal practitioners.'

As regards European legal culture, the Oxford conference that I referred to in last Friday's post is now being advertised on the website of the Institute of European and Comparative Law.

The public, the private and the European

My father used to like to refer to the famous ships passing each other by in the night when speaking about the miscommunications he sometimes encountered during his career as a lawyer. I believe it is part of the work of both practitioners and academics to try and understand the different approaches different people may have to legal problems and overcome them together. In the field of European law, one of the most interesting challenges seems to be to bridge the public/private divide that characterises many conceptual and practical approaches to regulation, law-making and adjudication. So far, there were not many fora that allowed for a comprehensive debate on the questions raised in this context.
Times seem to be changing with the inauguration of the European Law Institute, which was officially presented at a conference in Paris yesterday, 1st June 2011. Although it remains to be seen what will be the precise role of the ELI in the further development of European law, its programme provides much room for a further cooperation of public and private lawyers; or perhaps it would be better to speak of European lawyers here. I quote from ELI's manifesto:

'Among ELI’s core tasks are:

• to evaluate and stimulate the development of EU law, legal policy, and practice, and in particular make proposals for the further development of the acquis and for the enhancement of EU law implementation by the Member States;
• to identify and analyse legal developments in areas within the competence of Member States which are relevant at the EU level;
• to study EU approaches regarding international law and enhance the role EU law could play globally, for instance in drafting international instruments or model rules;
• to conduct and facilitate pan-European research, in particular to draft, evaluate or improve principles and rules which are common to the European legal systems; and
• to provide a forum, for discussion and cooperation, of jurists irrespective of their vocation or occupation, inter alia academics, judges, lawyers and other legal professionals, who take an active interest in European legal development and together represent a broad range of legal traditions.'

ELI welcomes the participation of both practitioners and scholars from all field of European law and invites applications for becoming a Fellow of the institute. More information can be found on the website.
Finally, as regards subjects for first projects, many speakers at the conference mentioned the application of fundamental rights to relationships between private parties, which in my (undoubtedly biased) opinion would be a field to which researchers and practitioners from many different backgrounds (or to stay within the metaphor, on different ships, preferably not just passing in the night) could greatly contribute.