Research focusing on the leader-laggard dynamic in EU policy-making has significantly contributed to our understanding of why EU policies often go beyond the least common denominator and why policies look the way they do. The literature has also provided plausible arguments about the incentives...

This article contributes to the debate on technocratic governance in the European Union. It examines the relationship between scientific expertise and policy-making in the foodstuffs sector and scrutinises the hypothesis that the European Commission follows a technocratic model in the food...

We compare the performance of liability rules for managing environmental disasters when third parties are harmed and cannot always be compensated. A firm can invest in safety to reduce the likelihood of accidents. The firm’s investment is unobservable to authorities. The presence of...

This paper analyses the potential legitimacy basis of REACH, the new regulatory system for the EC chemicals market. It is argued that three different potential sources of legitmacy exists: i) the quasi-democratic process within which it was established; ii) proceduralisation; and iii) through an...

Hardly anywhere is the trend towards a perfection of transnational governance arrangements and their legalization more visible than in international trade. Governance arrangements established through and alongside WTO law are both practically important and theoretically challenging. They do not...

It is perhaps a truism to note that ‘the consumer’ is but a role that is played by human subjects. This insight leaves us, as lawyers, with one vital question: how can or does the legal system meaningfully rationalise its encounters with the consumer? Can it, and if so to what way, shape the...

This paper attempts to present a comprehensive and coherent picture of the roleperformed by science under the SPS Agreement and SPS case law. It argues that the approach adopted by the Appellate Body is predominantly based on a technical paradigm, supplemented, however, with some considerations...

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate between principal-agent theory and the concept of deliberative supranationalism regarding the functioning of the EU committee system by analysing regulatory policy-making in the BSE case. The BSE crisis can be seen as a critical instance for committee...

Empirical evidence suggests that people’s risk-perceptions are often systematically biased. This paper develops a simple framework to analyse public policy when this is the case. Expected utility (well-being) is shown to depend on both objective and subjective risks. The latter are important...