Blog team changes

Dear Readers, we wanted to update you on a few changes that have taken place in our merry blog team. After a few years of productive collaboration with Agnieszka Jabłonowska (Leiden University), she has decided earlier this year to give up this side project. It was a pleasure working with Agnieszka and we keep hope she may return to blog writing in the future. Since then, we have expanded our authors' team, thus you may shortly expect to see posts by new authors. Warm welcome to our three new contributors (in order of joining us): Marina Federico (Ca' Foscari University of Venice), Jie Ouyang (University of Groningen) and Dominik Dworniczak (EUI). 

New blog author announcement: Adrianna Michałowicz

Dear readers,

Regrettably, we said goodbye to one of our regular contributors, dr Anna van Duin (University of Amsterdam). Due to her other obligations she had to step down from publishing on the blog in the past year, although we do hope she will return to us in due course!

However, we are happy to share that we have gained a new contributor for the blog: Adrianna Michałowicz, who is working on her PhD at the University of Łódź (Poland). Welcome Adrianna! I had a pleasure to meet her in person in 2018 at the conference I organised in Amsterdam on 'Consumer Law in the Data Economy' (which moment was even documented for history, see the photo). It will not come as a surprise then that Adrianna's research interests lie in the area of data protection. We are looking forward towards her forthcoming contributions!

Zotero database: Consumer Law Female Collective

Research shows that works of female scholars are less likely to be referred to than publications written by male authors (see e.g. on gender gap citations here). Is this the case in the field of consumer law studies, as well? These questions were raised in a conversation of my colleagues: Prof Vanessa Mak (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands) and Dr Christine Riefa (Brunel University, UK). They decided to organise an online meeting with a few other female scholars working in the field of European consumer law to discuss whether we could see any potential gender gaps, as well as brainstorm ideas on how to address them. This led to the beginning of the Consumer Law Female Collective this summer.

One of the ideas coming from the meeting was to create a database for female (at least co-)written scholarship and share it publicly. This should raise the awareness of female scholarship in this field, hopefully increasing the amount of citations to this body of work. I found some time over the past few weeks to set it up on Zotero, as it allows for an easy way to share it publicly. The database is open, which means all our readers can have access to it (although registration with Zotero will be necessary to do so). You may (and we hope you will) share this database with your students, colleagues, co-workers and anyone interested. We hope that this will help to diversify the curriculum for many consumer law classes, too.

 

We have introduced a detailed structure, hopefully allowing for an easy overview of sources, but the search function of the Zotero app facilitates an easy access, too. At the moment, we have over 100 sources in the database and many different sub-collections, but this is just the beginning. Therefore, dear readers, please feel free to send us suggestions what sources should further be added, what collections (sub-collections) you are still missing, etc. Our email address is: conlaw.fc[at]gmail.com When you are sending us your suggestions, please do so by giving us links to the publisher's websites for any journal articles, book chapters or books, as this facilitates adding these sources to Zotero. The main collections contain sources published in the English language but we are not opposed to the idea of creating sub-collections to sources written in other languages. The database is focused on European consumer law. With time we may, however, want to add sub-collections on other consumer legal systems.

We have now seven registered members of the Zotero Consumer Law Female Collective database group, with rights to add/edit the database, these are: Dr Andrea Fejos (University of Essex, UK), Dr Lorna Gillies (University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK), Dr Joasia Luzak (University of Exeter, UK), Prof Vanessa Mak (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands), Dr Kristin Nemeth (Universität Innsbruck,  Austria), Prof Charlotte Pavillon (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), Dr Christine Riefa (Brunel University, UK). If you were interested in having the rights to edit the database, please let us know, as we may want to add a few members to the editorial group.

EuCML journal: call for a new editor

EuCML is growing and looking for a new member of its editorial team – to join the articles’ editors.

EuCML (Journal of European Consumer and Market Law) has grown from strength to strength. The journal is now a well known fixture in the consumer and market law landscape, attracting high quality pieces and established authors from all over Europe. We receive a high volume of contributions.

EuCML is a flat structure journal. The editors attend regular Skype Meetings to prepare new issues. The current editors are split in teams corresponding with the section of the journal and all handle pieces and contact with authors. We are looking for an academic to join us (with a specialisation in data protection – broadly understood). The new editor would join the articles’ team and help us handle the new articles coming in. The process includes:

-    Receiving articles, contact with authors,
-    Identification of potential reviewers, contacting reviewers, management of review process (ensuring reviewers stick to deadlines), feedback to authors
-    Checking new versions of articles and use of reviewers’ comments
-    Advice on use of OSCOLA (our referencing system) to authors
-    Editing pieces (all in English)

To apply, please send a CV and covering letter to Christine.riefa@brunel.ac.uk by 30 September 2020. The EuCML editors will interview in the first week of November. The position is open and will start immediately upon appointment (unless otherwise agreed with the successful candidate). All editors are unpaid for their work.

The EuCML editors.
Christoph Busch, Alberto De Franceschi, Mateja Durovic, Joasia Luzak, Vanessa Mak, Jorge Morais Carvalho, Kristin Nemeth, Rupprecht Podszun, Christine Riefa.

Blog comments option disabled

Dear readers,

As this year we have been flooded with spam comments more than ever before, we have decided to disable the 'comments' option on the blog for the moment (read: until Blogger installs a better spam filter). We are still happy to receive comments on our posts - please reach out to us either on our email addresses (check our listed bios) - or start a discussion with us on Twitter. Most blog contributors have their own Twitter accounts, but we also share information on all posts via my account @joasialuzak.

Best,

Joasia (in the name of all contributors)

EuCML - call for papers on digital sphere and consumers

CALL FOR PAPERS

New technologies are evolving at a fast rate, serving consumers and posing new threats in equal measures. It is for lawyers to keep up and perhaps anticipate what regulatory needs may present themselves in future. While the European Commission is busy with a review of intermediary's liability and the Regulation of the platform economy, other technologies are worthy of attention, although they may not yet be on the legislative agenda. EuCML (Journal of European Consumer and Market Law) wishes to attract articles at the cutting edge of development in the digital sphere. We therefore welcome articles on (but not limited to) the legal implications of:

• big data, deep learning
• chat bots
• progressive web apps
• 3D printing
• human microchips
• block chain technology
• driverless cars
• internet of things
• the use of artificial intelligence
• any other subject we have not yet come across and that will have an impact on consumers and their protection.

Submissions should be sent digitally via e-mail in Word format to the Editors at editors@eucml.eu

All articles are double blind peer-reviewed. Articles should preferably not be longer than 10.000 words and follow our submissions guidelines (OSCOLA), available at: 

http://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/eucml/submissions

Vacancy for a PhD candidate (European consumer law)

Any (recent) graduate or a student who is about to graduate, with an interest in research and in European consumer law, should consider applying for a PhD position at the University of Amsterdam, within a bigger project "The ABC of Online Disclosure Duties: Towards Better Informed Consumers". See here for more details.

The deadline for application is 26 February 2016.

PhD vacancy in European Private Law in Amsterdam

There is currently a PhD vacancy in European Private Law within the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law at the University of Amsterdam. Closing date for applications: 31 March 2015. Link to more information: see here.

"Project description 

The researcher will work within the overarching project ‘The Architecture of Post-National Rule-making: Public International Law, European Public Law, and European Private Law’ jointly led by professor Martijn Hesselink, professor Deirdre Curtin and professor André Nollkaemper. The project aims to provide new reflections and insights into the discussion on the legitimacy of post-national rule-making starting from three distinct but in the project uniquely combined legal perspectives. The main objective is to relate perspectives from public international law, European public law and European private law on post-national rule-making and to examine through a new lens any legitimacy concerns that may arise from the new arrangements.

The successful candidate will benefit not only from committed research supervision by a distinguished expert in the area of European private law and its theory, but also from the mentorship of leading professors in European public law and international law in the lively and supportive intellectual environment of the University of Amsterdam that has long enjoyed a strong, international reputation for critical innovation in legal research. At the core of the project lies a close multi-disciplinary dialogue between senior and junior researchers that crosses the normal boundaries of the three sub-disciplines of law.

Applicants are asked to submit a research proposal of approximately 1000 words, which should include a section on methodology and fits within the broader conceptual theme of the project. They are invited to formulate an innovative specific research question (or hypothesis) within the general theme of the project, and with a specific focus on European private law. We are open not only to descriptive and analytical questions but, in particular, also to normative questions, including questions relating to the legitimacy of post-national rule-making and the justice of post-national rules in the area of private law."

Judges in Utopia

Happy New Year, dear readers! For those among you whose interest in European consumer law extends to the broader theoretical framework within which developments in this field may be embedded, I would like to take the opportunity to combine good wishes for an eventful consumer law year with an announcement of my new blog on 'judicial law-making in European private law'. 

The blog will present results of a research project named 'Judges in Utopia', which is funded under NWO's Vidi scheme and aims to further develop private law theory on the interaction among European and national judges in the resolution of private legal disputes within the EU, including cases on consumer contracts.

You can visit my blog on judgesinutopia.blogspot.com

Readers with an interest in possibly joining the research project might also wish to check out two current vacancies in the project, one for a PhD researcher and one for a post-doc researcher (deadline for applications: 30 January 2015).

Finally, blog entries with a relevance to both European consumer law and the role of the judiciary will be posted on both blogs.

Merry Christmas to all our readers!

All the best wishes for the upcoming festive season to our readers! Enjoy your Christmas shopping, delicious meals and family time. Be aware of your consumer rights, too!

Best Wishes Our Dear Readers!

All the best for 2013, dear readers!

Dear readers,

Our blog and its publicity has grown in the past year and we are very happy because of that. We wish you now a Merry Christmas and even more interest in European consumer law next year! Follow us and with us join in the discussion of current consumer law issues.

Best wishes!

Joasia, Chantal, Candida, Bram

Happy New Year 2012!

We wanted to wish all our readers all the BEST in 2012!

Merry Christmas!

merry christmas pics on Sodahead

We wanted to wish all our readers Merry Christmas 2011!

Congratulations to Dr. Luzak!

This morning, Joasia Luzak, founder of this blog and my colleague at the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law (CSECL), convincingly, successfully and with élan defended her PhD thesis on 'The implied duty of a service provider to warn about a risk of construction defects resulting from a contract with a third party, with emphasis on defects resulting from design failures'. In her analysis, she made a comparison of the rules that have been developed in English, German and Dutch case law on precontractual and contractual duties to warn. She then compared the relevant rules in the Draft Common Frame of Reference to these. A short summary of the research (in Dutch) can be found here. We will of course keep you posted on the publication of the book.

Congratulations, Joasia!

A moment for our readers

Originally, I created this blog in order to keep in touch with developments in European consumer law. It gave me a motivation to look up the news every day (and read it immediately, without sending it to my email for later reference). This blog was also planned to be an archive for all the news, easy to fall back on months later. It's not an anniversary of this blog today, but it has been some time since I checked Google Analytics (a brilliant statistics tool, btw!) to see how we were doing. And wow, was I surprised. I mean I hear from time to time that someone, aside my colleagues, is reading the blog. My students, other academics I run into mention this blog occasionally. But when I compared today the number of visits that this blog had in the past month to the visits within the same period of time but last year, I was astonished. The number increased over 200%. I guess we are doing something right. I'll try to keep it up this way. :)

Vacation

It was a summer vacation time not only for the authors of this blog but also, luckily, for the ECJ and many other authorities that could significantly influence European consumer law. Soon, the regular updates will follow. I hope the readers of this blog managed to get a proper consumer treatment during their travels.

Goals

I've been thinking about writing this blog for a while now, but the concept has not yet crystallized itself fully. Instead, I prefer to just start doing it and see how it develops in practice. In the near future I intend to start adding more and more data that were of interest to me as far as development of European Consumer Law is concerned. I will start with posting short summaries of ECJ judgments that concerned EC Law and have been issued as of 1 January 2010. With time I hope to start adding interesting news on European consumers and their laws, maybe describe certain articles/books that are published on this subject. The goal is: at least a weekly update.