Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:55:27.331Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - EC – Asbestos European Communities – Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos-Containing Products

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Joseph H. H. Weiler
Affiliation:
Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Chair, New York University School of Law
Henrik Horn
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
Petros C. Mavroidis
Affiliation:
Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Get access

Summary

EC – Asbestos as Watershed

Some cases attain “landmark” status because they constitute a jurisprudential paradigm shift. Others attain such status because in them a decisor, usually a supreme jurisdiction, renders a definitive, “canonical,” ruling. Sometimes it is both reasons. Sometimes, rarely, it is neither. ECAsbestos is such a rare case. It may well qualify as a landmark. It has, justifiably, attracted huge attention and, understandably, considerable controversy. Its reasoning, however, is so decidedly non-definitive that it is not, consequently, possible to say whether it represents a veritable paradigm shift or is just a badly reasoned case by the Appellate Body (AB), albeit with a non controversial result.

It is a rare, indeed unique, instance that embedded in the decision itself a Member of the Appellate Body Division which decided the case expresses “substantial doubt” as to the core reasoning of the decision. And although the AB rejected the reasoning, not the final outcome, of the Panel's decision, the doctrinal implications of the rejection are not clear and continue to be contested.

The importance of Asbestos must initially be found in its factual matrix, a French Government Decree of 1966 providing, inter alia, in its first article as follows:

I. – For the purpose of protecting workers, … the manufacture, processing, sale, import, placing on the domestic market and transfer under any title whatsoever of all varieties of asbestos fibres shall be prohibited, regardless of whether these substances have been incorporated into materials, products or devices.

II. – For the purpose of protecting consumers, … the manufacture, import, domestic marketing, exportation, possession for sale, offer, sale and transfer under any title whatsoever of all varieties of asbestos fibres or product containing asbestos fibres shall be prohibited …

Type
Chapter
Information
The WTO Case Law of 2001
The American Law Institute Reporters' Studies
, pp. 14 - 40
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×