We shall introduce a set of fundamental legal concepts, providing a definition of each of them. This set will include, besides the usual deontic modalities (obligation, prohibition and permission), the following notions: obligative rights (rights related to others’ obligations), permissive...

The completion of a Community system of unitary intellectual property protection has come to a halt when the Commission’s proposal for a Community Patent Regulation was shelved by the Council on political grounds in late 2004. By contrast, under the auspices of the European Patent Organization...

This paper will appear in Genèse et Destinée de la Constitution Européenne Commentaire du traité établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe à la lumière des travaux préparatoires et perspectives d’ avenir edited by Giuliano Amato, Hervé Bribosia and Bruno De Witte. It seeks to...

International comparisons of Civil Services usually overlook the difficulties due to differing definitions of the civil service in national legal systems. Comparative statistics are therefore extremely misleading, as they are at best based on formal-legal criteria instead of being based on...

The 2005 World Summit was announced as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the United Nations so as to provide it with the institutional and policy tools needed to meet the challenges and threats to peace and security in contemporary world. But the Summit was also meant to be a crucial...

The present contribution analyses the connection between privacy and trust, with regard to data protection. In particular, it shows how the need to facilitate trust-based relationships may justify some limitations of privacy (in the sense of a right to self-determination over personal data), but...

The use of one and the same word, i.e. Justice in the English or French language to render the two concepts of Gerechtigkeit when the issue is about equitability or fairness in social relations, and of Justiz when the issue is about the administration of justice often leads lawyers to overlook...

This paper explores some of the issues raised by the absence of due publication of EC secondary legislation in the languages of the new Member States after the 2004 Accession. It first lays down general principles regarding the publication of legal acts in Community law, pertinent to the current...

This paper discusses the basic constitutional problem of modern international law since the UN Charter: How can the power-oriented international legal system based on sovereign equality of states be reconciled with the universal recognition of inalienable human rights deriving from respect for...

The language of common European constitutional identity is distinguishable from that of common European constitutional traditions in that the former does not focus so centrally on the past, and is independent of the legal doctrinal language of the EU law. When discussing constitutional identity,...