Interdisciplinary Centre Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL)

Research papers

  • 12 December 2025

    Claims of identity — whether national or European, more or less supported by constitutions and treaties — abound in the current context of crises and risk further imperilling integration. Against this background, we argue that it is urgent to reflect on the capacity of EU law to express different claims, worldviews and identities from those of the Euro-lawyers who invented and promoted it. To do so, we propose to approach EU law as local knowledge, i.e. as a set of legal practices, techniques, patterns of reasoning, concepts and formulas that are locally constructed to respond to local needs and standards of argumentation. This perspective contrasts with the functional thinking that has permeated EU law, which risks stretching the law beyond what it can realistically achieve. Showing the variety of local meanings of EU law, we argue, can give valuable insights on the reasons of the disconnection between EU law and society, but also – and importantly – on possible ways to reconnect.

    Authors: Joana Mendes, Afroditi Marketou

    Keywords: Uniformity of EU Law, Legal Diversity, Comparative Law, Functional Legacy, Local Meanings

  • 2 December 2025

    The protective capacity of EU legal regime governing the authorization of plant protection products (the Pesticides Regulation of 2009) turns on the meaning and assessment of “unacceptable effects” on the environment and “harmful effects” on human and animal health. These are, at the same time, legal conditions of the lawfulness of administrative decisions, the public goods that ground the powers allocated by an intricate legal regime, and the goals that the competent actors must pursue. While the centrality of public health and environmental protection is reflected in many of the Regulation’s norms, some of the decisions on pesticides have been deeply controversial on those grounds (such as the renewal of the authorization of glyphosates and of neonicotinoids). Drawing on a range of documents produced during the evaluation of the regulation and on the body of case law stemming from a rich litigation, the article analyses how the legislature, the administration and the courts have shaped the meaning of those key terms and how far the legal strictures have constrained administrative powers. It argues that the Commission, as part of an administrative system that includes the Member States and scientific bodies, defines the meaning of the legal conditions by which it is bound, while striking difficult trade-offs between protection needs and public goods. Delegation is not a suitable analytical frame to understand what is at stake, as it presupposes that the legislature delimits the lawful scope of action. Judicial review, while procedurally robust, also does not substantively constrain these powers, as courts refrain from interpreting pivotal terms of the legal regime beyond their procedural function. The article concludes that the role of law in this domain is less about constraining administrative power than about enabling the administrative capacity to fulfil a public function and validating the rationality of a complex political-economic system that precedes the existence of legal norms.

    Author: Joana Mendes

    Keywords: Pesticides, EU Administration, Judicial Review, Public Interests, Legality

  • 11 July 2024

    The chapters contained in this yearbook have been composed by the participants of the fifth edition of the Forum on Procedural Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union held on Monday, 27 February 2023 at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law. The scope of the Forum was twofold. First, it set out to tackle cutting-edge procedural issues which arise in the Court’s proceedings and case-law. Second, it provided an update on general procedural issues. The Forum took its name from the intention to have an open dialog among specialists of EU Law and Procedural Law and to foster comparison with other courts, be they domestic or international.

    Co-Editors: Daniel Sarmiento, Pierre-Henri Conac, Olivier Baillet, Walter Bruno

    Authors: Takis Tridimas, Lena Hornkohl, Nils Imgarten, Enrique Vallines, Sara Iglesias Sánchez, Simoncini Marta, Janek Tomasz Nowak

    Keywords: Court of Justice of the European Union, Procedural Law, Litigation, Preliminary References, Infringement Actions, Appeals on Points of Law, Action of Annulment

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