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European challenges to private law: on false dichotomies, true conflicts and the need for a constitutional perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Christian Joerges
Christian Joerges*
Affiliation:
Centre for European Law and Politics, Bremen and European University Institute, Florence
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Extract

This paper advances and defends a ‘constitutionalist’ perspective on the Europeanisation of private law. The first introductory section places the Europeanisation of private law in relation to current debates and then proceeds, in section II, to its practical implications with the help of identifying a significant cluster of conflict. The main part of this paper, however, is concerned with the theoretical issues of the analytical background and normative basis of the constitutionalist perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 146 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1998

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References

1. The thesis evolved from a course at the Academy of European Law, Florence in July 1996; it was subsequently presented in a workshop on ‘Private Governance, Democratic Constitutionalism and Supranationalism’ at the European University Institute in May 1997. A first version was published in (1997) 3 European Law J 378. Its present elaboration thus owes much to many. Special mention should be made of Andreas Furrer, Oliver Gerstenberg, Michelle Everson, Christoph Schmid and Wolf Sauter. Nevertheless, this renewed effort represents work in progress and the usual disclaimer applies.

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4. A telling example is provided by the ECJ's reluctance to invoke the four freedoms of European primary law as a yardstick against which rules and principles of private law are to be measured and justified. For recent accounts of this especially in Germany intense debate cf Steindorff, E EG-Vertrag und Privatrecht (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1996) pp 277–202 Google Scholar; P von Wilmowsky ‘EG-Freiheiten und Vertragsrecht’ (1996) 51 Juristen Zeitung 590–596; N Reich ‘A European Constitution for Citizens: Reflections on the Rethinking of Union and Community Law’ (1997) 3 European Law J 131–164.

5. See above n 3.

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25. Above n 16 at 47.

26. Above n 15 at 60.

27. Cf C Joerges and J Neyer ‘From Intergovernmental Bargaining to Deliberative Political Processes: The Constitutionalisation of Comitology’ (1997) 3 European Law J 273–299. More familiar examples include the interpretation of international conventions, the ECJ's quest for ‘richtlinienkonfome Auslegung’, the follow-up of its jurisprudence on state liability, cf W Van Gerven ‘Bridging the Unbridgeable: Community and National Tort Laws after Frankovich and Brasserie’ in Micklitz, H-W and Reich, N (eds) Public Interest Litigation before European Courts (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1997) 57–94 Google Scholar (also in (1996) 45 ICLQ 507).

28. See the exhaustive, yet compelling, reconstruction of German formalism by Ewald, W ‘Comparative Jurisprudence (I): “What was it like to Try a Rat ?”’ (1995) 143 v Pennsylvania LR 1889–2249 at 2045ff and 2119–2121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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31. Cf the discussion in A Dnes ‘The Economic Analysis of Franchising and its Regulation,’ in Joerges, C (ed) Franchising and the Law: Theoretical and Comparative Approaches in Europe and the United States (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1991) 133–142 Google Scholar.

32. Walt Wilhelm et al v Bundeskartellamt Case 14/68 [1969] ECR 1.

33. Even the recent ‘Green Paper on vertical restraints in EU competition policy’ (COM (96) 721, http://www.europa.eu.int/en/comm/dg04entente/en/96712/en.htm) does not even mention contract law but discusses only co-operative arrangements within competition policy (ch III, parts IV, V). As a recent example out of the ECJ's rich jurisprudence, cf VAG Händlerbeirat v SYD-Consult Case C-41/96 judgment of 5 June 1997; here the court repeated that group exemption regulations do not prescribe specific contractual arrangements (at para 16), although it goes without saying that the freedom of parallel imports erodes the bargained out equilibrium within the dealer contracts under consideration.

34. DeCockborne, J-E ‘Franchising and European Community Competition Law’ in Joerges, C (ed) Franchising and the Law (above n 31) at 312.Google Scholar

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36. Cf for an institutional economics perspective, Gerken, L ‘Institutional Competition: An Orientative Framework’ in Gerken, L (ed) Competition Among Institutions (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995) pp 1–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for a political science analysis, Héritier, A, Mingers, S, Knill, H C and Becka, M Die Veränderung von Staatlichkeit in Europa (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1994) pp 1–5, 12–19, 386–395CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A Héritier ‘The Accomodation of Diversity in European Policy-making and its Outcomes: Regulatory Policy as a Patchwork’ (1996) 3 Journal of European Public Policy 149–167.

37. Cf the deliberations in Joerges, C ‘Contract and Status…’ in Joerges, C (ed) Franchising and the Law (above n 31) esp at 64–66.Google Scholar

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43. It is again important to note that the EC acts as a promoter of developments that have broad bases and precursors in national systems; cf G Teubner‘ The “State” of Private Networks: The Emerging Legal Regime of Polycorporatism in Germany’ (1993) 2 Brigham Young University LR 553–575; J Black ‘Constitutionalising Self-Regulation’ (1996) 59 MLR 24–55.

44. This reading of supranationalism I have advocated in various contexts; for private law cf C Joerges and G Brüggemeier ‘Europäisierung des Vertrags- und Haftungsrechts’ in Müller-Graff, P-C (ed) Gemeinsames Privatrecht in der Europäischen Gemeinschft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993) pp 233ff at 278–286 Google Scholar; for social regulation cf Joerges, C ‘Scientific Expertise in Social Regulation and the European Court of Justice: Legal Frameworks for Denationalised Governance Structures’ in Joerges, C, Ladeur, K-H and Vos, E (eds) Integrating Scientific Expertise into Legal Decision-Making (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1997) pp 295–323, at 300–319Google Scholar.

45. For a recent elaboration cf Gerstenberg, O Bürgerrechte und deliberative Demokratie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997)Google Scholar; important American references include F Michelman ‘Law's Republic’ (1988) 97 Yale Law J 1493; C Sunstein ‘Legal Interferences with Private Preferences’ (1986) 53 v Chicago LR 1129–1147; Sunstein, C After the Rights Revolution (Harvard UP, 1990)Google Scholar; a German author may mention the vicinity to the work of Jürgen Habermas; cf F Michelrnan's review of J Habermas Between Facts and Norms (1996) in (1996) Journal of Philosophy 307 at 310. For contributions dealing more specifically with issues of regulation, cf M Seidenfeld ‘A Civic Republican Justification of the Bureaucratic State’ (1992) 105 Harvard LR 1511–1576; R Pildes and C Sunstein ‘Reinventing the Regulatory State’ (1995) 62 v Chicago LR 1–129.

46. Cf Weiler, J H H ‘Fin-de-Siècle Europe’ in Dehousse, R (ed) Europe After Maastricht. An Ever Closer Union? (Munich: Beck, 1994) pp 203–216 Google Scholar.

47. Scharpf, Cf F W ‘Democratic Policy in Europe’ (1996) 2 European Law J 136–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Cf references in n 7 above; as an interesting German legal precursor, cf Ipsen, H P Europäisches Gemeinschaftsrecht (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1972) pp 176ffGoogle Scholar (for further references and a short analysis cf C Joerges ‘Economic Law…’ (above n 8) at 38–41); Majone has acknowledged this Geistesverwandtschaft in ‘The European Community. An “Independent Fourth Branch of Government”?’ in Brüggemeier, G (ed) Verfassungen für ein ziviles Europa (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993) pp 23–44 Google Scholar.

49. But see V Eichener (above n 41) chs 5 and 6.

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54. Cf the ‘Concluding Remarks’ below p 165.

55. That discipline remains perplexed with many issues which Community law has long settled: (1) the protection of basic rights requires exceptional private international law provisions whereas primary and secondary Community law promote transnational principles of justice as a matter of course; (2) legal systems of private law are recognised as being equivalent as a matter of principle; the application of mandatory foreign rules, however, remains ‘one-sided’ under private international law even where Community law requires mutual recognition; (3) private international law is not in a position to organise transnational continuous co-operation and refuses, at least in the dominating continental schools of thought, to assign legal validity to ‘interests’ societies pursue at an international level, whereas the establishment of transnational regulatory frameworks and the constant accommodation of regulatory concerns and economic interests is a dominant feature and daily business of Community law and its implementation.

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57. Cf C Joerges ‘Economic Law…’ (above n 8) at 30f, 60f. Closer analysis of most regulatory traditions will reveal such dependencies; for the inevitability of historical compromise and its pivotal role in shaping institutional, regulatory structures, cf Everson, M on insurance regulation, ‘The German Federal Supervisory Authority for Insurance’ in Majone, G (ed) Regulating Europe (London: Routledge, 1996) pp 202–228 Google Scholar.

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59. Cf references in n 22.

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61. Above n 52.

62. Cf Kübler, F ‘Ideologieverdacht und universale Diskursverpflichtung’ in Schmidt, E and Weyers, H-L (eds) Liber Amicorum Josef Esser (Heidelberg: C F Muller, 1995) pp 91–108 at 105Google Scholar.

63. Tinbergen, J International Econonomic Integration (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2nd edn, 1965)Google Scholar. For a recent quasi authoritative definition cf Pelkmans, J European Integration. Methods and Economic Analysis (Harlow: Longman, 1997) p 6 Google Scholar.

64. Reich, N Europäisches Verbraucherschutzrecht (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 3rd edn, 1996) pp 48ffGoogle Scholar.

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66. Cf Furrer, A Die Sperrwirkung des Gemeinschaftsrechts auf die nationlen Rechtsordnungen (Baden-Baden: Nornos, 1994) pp 161 ffGoogle Scholar; M Poiares Maduro ‘Reforming the Market or the State? Article 30 and the European Constitution: Economic Freedom and Political Rights’ (1997) 3 European Law J 55–82.

67. Joerges and Brüggerneier (above n 44).

68. ‘The Europeanisation of Private Law as a Rationalisation Process and as a Contest of Legal Disciplines - an Analysis of the Directive on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts’ (1995) 3 European Review of Private Law 175–192 (Kant's ‘Streit der Fakultäten’ dates from 1798).Google Scholar