This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the economic, legal and public policy rationales for the application of taxes and other fiscal measures on health-related commodities. The motivation for such taxes has been more often linked to the fiscal revenues generated than to their potential...

The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the emerging, yet largely undefined, principle of openness in EU law. After addressing the semantic confusion existing between openness and transparency, it attempts – through a textual and systemic interpretation of their respective legal...

The EFTA Court’s judgment in Philip Morris vs Norway, delivered on September 12, 2011, is one of the first decisions adopted by an international court upon the legality of an entire new generation of tobacco control measures, such as visual display bans at point of sale, with trade rules. As a...

To discourage unhealthy eating and limit the population’s intake of fatty foods, an increasing number of countries across the the European Union is considering levying taxes on unhealthy food. This essay provides a brief analysis of the genesis, rationale and legal implications of these...

Once more Mark Pollack and Gregory Shaffer have offered an illuminating and methodologically diverse book about transatlantic governance, by focusing this time on the bitter controversy over the regulation of genetically modified (GM) foods between the European Union and the United States....

Plain packaging, a new tobacco control tool that is currently being considered by a growing number of countries, mandates the removal of all attractive and promotional aspects of tobacco product packages. As a result, the only authorized feature remaining would be the use of brand name, which...

Emergency crises have always tested our ability to organise and swiftly execute a coordinated response. Both natural and unnatural disasters pose new questions to which previous experience provides only limited answers. These challenges are arguably greater than ever, in a more globalised world...

Gowan represents the latest and most significant judgment of the European Court of Justice dealing with the controversial precautionary principle. This judgment epitomises the EU’s current struggle in reconciling a flexible, precautionary-oriented regulatory approach with a rational,...

Opinion 1/08 of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) resolves a dispute between the European Commission, supported by the European Parliament, on the one hand, and the Council of the European Union (Council) and fifteen member states, on the other, as to the competence of the...

On September 9, 2008, the European Court of Justice dismissed the appeals by two Italian companies – FIAMM Spa and Giorgio Fedon & Figli Spa – seeking compensation for damages suffered as a consequence of the US increased custom duties authorised by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) in...