Technical standards are a form of soft law which has long played a fundamental role in the regulation of the internal market of the EU. The three distinctive characteristics of technical standards are their technical…
What is the difference between hard law and soft law? How can we identify soft norms? These issues occupied lawyers in cases T-721/14 and C-16/16P Belgium v Commission where the delineation of a recommendation from…
Introduction In a contribution to the recently published volume on The Legal Effects of EU Soft Law, edited by Petra Lea Láncos, Napoleon Xanthoulis, and Luis Arroyo Jiménez, which explores new theoretical and empirical angles…
My contribution to the volume on The Legal Effects of EU Soft Law – Theory, Language and Sectoral Insights considers longstanding questions on validity, bindingness and normativity of law through the lens of EU soft…
Problem and hypothesis Soft law seems to somehow accommodate two characteristics: it does not have a legally binding nature – or legally binding force, legally binding effects, or simply ‘bindingness’ – yet at the same…