This article offers fresh insights into the legal reasoning of the European Court of Justice, using systematic content analysis to explore newly gathered quantitative data on the justificatory reasoning in the Court’s judgments on registered trade mark law. Using a broad sample of trade mark preliminary rulings dating from 1996 to 2018, the analysis tests empirically how far the Court’s interpretative practices in fact conform to its own articulated standards for the interpretation of EU laws. The analysis shows that the Court has departed from those standards in a substantial portion of trade mark judgments, in circumstances suggesting strategic omission of modes of reasoning conflicting with the Court’s preferred interpretation. This raises questions over the transparency of the Court’s judgments as a public statement of its private reasoning, and the extent to which the Court’s stated approach to legal reasoning in fact constrains its interpretative discretion.

In Case C-363/18 Organisation juive europeenne, Vignoble Psagot Ltd v Ministre de l’Economie et des Finances (“Occupied Territories case”), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or Court) was tasked with deciding what information on its country of origin or place of provenance is mandatory for business according to existing European legislation. This casenote summarizes the interpretative decisions taken by the Advocate General Hogan (Advocate General or AG) and the Court in their opinion and judgment, respectively. It then considers the broader implications of this case from several perspectives: first, from the perspective of political consumerism and its (potential) role in EU internal market law; second, from the perspective of the enforcement of international law; and third, from the perspective of the coherence of EU food and consumer law including its behavioural dimension.

The United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union on 31 January 2020 and immediately entered into a period of ‘transition’. With the EU acquis continuing to apply to the UK during this period, regulatory alignment with the EU is maintained until transition ends. However, this ‘shadow membership’ is not an intimation of the desire of the UK to maintain alignment following transition. Indeed, the UK has stipulated that continuing alignment is incompatible with its direction of travel out of the EU. Rather, in its desire to protect and enhance its ‘regulatory autonomy’, the UK is set to ditch the discipline on its autonomy experienced during membership – a ‘free movement’ discipline – in favour of a looser ‘free trade’ discipline. In response the EU has asserted the need to protect its own autonomy by demanding that the UK commit to ‘level playing field’ requirements aimed at preventing the EU’s balance of market liberalism and regulation and regulatory competition and neutrality from being eroded. The aim of this article is to evaluate whether the ambition to agree a comprehensive economic partnership is compatible with EU and UK attempts to protect their regulatory autonomy.

Defence date: 21 May 2020 (Online)

Following the UK's vote to leave the EU in a national referendum there has been much debate over the correct legal process to be followed under both domestic law and the EU Treaties to give effect to this decision. This article seeks to contribute to these discussions by focusing on an aspect of the withdrawal process which, in the author�s view, has not been given full consideration to date; namely, the need for the consent of the European Parliament before any withdrawal agreement may be completed.