Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Iurisprudentia

The Autonomy of the EU’s Legal Order and its Dimensions

Sorina Doroga — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 22:32:23 +0300

The concept of autonomy lies at the core of the distinctiveness of European Union law and of the EU’s legal order. While the EU system is a creation drawing features from both an international organization and a federal state, the European Court of Justice has strongly proclaimed in its case law the sui generis nature of the Union as a supranational entity, relying heavily on autonomy as a key principle of the Union’s legal order. Without purporting to cover the full spectrum of possible analytical approaches, this paper examines some of the conceptions regarding the nature and dichotomies characterizing the autonomy of EU law, which might prove helpful in mapping the evolution of the notion into an ‘existential’ principle of the EU. The paper also discusses the internal and external dimensions of autonomy, with an emphasis on the latter, illustrating the evolution of external perceptions and the EU’s dynamics on the international plane.

Competing methods and norms in the regulation of international sales

Miklós Király — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 22:48:58 +0300

The study explores the unification of private international law and substantive contract law in the field of international sales law. It starts by asking whether the instruments of uniform substantive contract law can fully replace the rules of private international law, as well as if different periods be distinguished: can it be said that, at first, private international law played the decisive role in the settlement of international commercial disputes, followed by the law of traders, the Lex Mercatoria, and then by uniform norms of substantive law? Or is the relationship more sophisticated, because different gates open between the instruments of substantive law and conflict of laws? Can private international law eventually play a role in determining the application of substantive law conventions or in filling gaps in the uniform law? In the second part of the paper, several examples demonstrate that the unification of substantive law and private international law does not exclude or make each other superfluous; they live in a multifaceted relationship, besides competing as part of their long-lasting coexistence.

Step Relatives of Sources of International Law

Diana Botău — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:09:39 +0300

Article 38 §1 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice indicates a closed list of sources of law within the international system. Given the text of this Article, an international rule that has not been created as a conventional rule, as a customary rule, or as a general principle of law recognized by civilized nations cannot be considered valid within the international legal system. However, starting with the ’60, more and more scholarly voices questioned, with different degrees of intensity, the idea that the current configuration of the international system could still be conciliated with the exclusive list of sources of law indicated by Article 38. This paper aims to identify the causes and the confusions that justify and feed the doctrine of flexible sources, while also trying to demonstrate that most of such “revisionist” proposals lack the analytical rigor to give them viability. To this end, the paper evaluates the main pseudo-sources of international law, whose legal physiognomy might look as justifying, in an erroneous manner, the idea that they belong to the same family as the legitimate sources.

Personalized advertising and selection of legal grounds for the processing of personal data by digital platforms

Juanita Goicovici — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:14:23 +0300

The study addresses the problematics of identifying pertinent legal justifications for the processing of users’ personal data by very large digital platforms, as these issues were reflected in the CJEU decision of July 4, 2023, in case C-252/21, Meta Platforms Inc. The decision of the CJEU will have massive reverberations on the manner under which national courts and supervisory authorities with competencies in the matter of controlling the processing of personal information will apply the provisions of art. 9, 1^st para. GDPR, for cookie technologies that select browsing data on the websites of commercial partners of an oversized digital platform and that involve the storage of “special categories of personal data”, prohibiting the processing operations which concern these categories. On the second level, the CJEU decision marks the impossibility, for digital platforms, of selecting legal grounds such as the performance of the contract or the legitimate interest of the data operator, when collecting personal data and, especially, behavioral data of users, in contexts that are irreconcilable with the genuine necessity of performing contractual obligations.

Sport, fines, free movement of workers and cases of interest at the Court of Justice of the European Union

Cosmin-Flavius Costaș, Septimiu-Ioan Puț — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 23:38:44 +0300

Following the judgement in the famous Bosman case (1995), the world of sports has changed and has become more inclusive in terms of sportsmen’ nationality. Therefore, it is not uncommon that successful teams, particularly in the European Union, include players from a variety of nationalities. But, at the same time, the free circulation of workers and professionels has affected the force of national teams, as the base for selection of national players was significantly reduced. So, on one hand, national regulators are trying to impose national quotas for team sports, in order to secure a national base of selection. On the other hand, court challenges of the existing rules regarding the selection of locally formed players are in the spotlight, particularly before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Starting from a recent debate in Romanian sports, the authors follow these developments and provide various arguments for the general discussion on these topics.

Analysis of the amendments to the Romanian Criminal Code regarding offenses against the person

Doris Alina Șerban, Sergiu Bogdan — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

The aim of this study is to highlight and analyse the modifications introduced in the Special Part of the Criminal Code, Crimes against individuals, with the entry into force of Law no. 171/2023 and Law no. 248/2023.

This article will attempt a point-by-point theoretical analysis of the modifications, in a critical manner when necessary. It will also be analysing the potential problems these modifications may raise in reference to other incrimination norms, thus exposing the (in)appropriateness of the changes.