Latest blog articles
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Comparing figures on corona infections and mortality can be misleading
The number of people dying in Belgium from the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is higher than in neighbouring countries. This high mortality rate makes it seem as if Belgium is not doing as well as its neighbours. The...
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With the prevailing Coronavirus (COVID-19) it is recommended to work from home as much as possible. For frontier workers, however, working from home can be disadvantageous. This is because they then work in another country from one day to the next. International and European rules on the...
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The very recent ruling of the CJEU in DK (C-653/19 PPU, 28 November 2019) came to verify two quite depressing suspicions about the current status of European criminal law. First, Directive 2016/343 on the presumption of innocence remains an instrument with staggeringly limited applicability...
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More than ten years after the European Court of Justice ruled that the German Eigenheimzulage was in breach of European law, the EC also started questioning its successor, the Baukindergeld. ITEM had previously concluded that the Baukindergeld was in breach of European law. We now await the...
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In its judgment of 19 September 2019, the ECJ ruled that Dutch legislation excluding frontier workers residing in the Netherlands but working as a mini-jobber in Germany from the Dutch social security system is compatible with EU law. If the Hoge Raad follows the approach taken by the ECJ, the...
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This post will focus on the Article 34(1) ICJ Statute requirement that ‘[o]nly states may be parties in cases before the Court’.
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It would have been rather uncomfortable for the Court to rule that the Italian limitation periods for serious VAT-fraud cases should be set aside, wouldn't it? Can Taricco II be, after all, just a temporary (and unstable!) bridge over the troubled waters of the EU’s financial interests, soon to be...
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On 10 October 2017, Catalonia issued and then immediately suspended its declaration of independence, and urged Spain to negotiate. Spain does not want to negotiate.
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From illegal but legitimate to legal because it is legitimate? This post argues that, analogous to the concept of defences in municipal legal systems, international law on the use of force should adopt a systematic distinction between justifications and excuses.