Latest blog articles

  • If you like it, then you shoulda put good faith in it

    As the title suggests: Beyoncé already knew that good faith can determine the fate of one’s actions. This is also true for registering trade marks. One should hence avoid bad faith practices, as defined by Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

  • Louboutin red sole shoes and copycats

    Christian Louboutin vs Van Haren Schoenen - The CJEU is to decide as to whether or not the red colour on soles of Louboutin shoes represents an aspect of a shape of the product, in which case it would not be protectable.

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  • Populism as absolutism?

    It is not that listening to the electorate is wrong. It is not wrong either to build a campaign on perceived wishes of the electorate. Trying to win an electoral campaign either, is wrong.

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  • EU, democracy and the rule of law in Poland

    What exactly are the legal instruments for the EU according the measures that have been introduced recently with regard to the constitutional court and in terms of the media law. This article is only available in Dutch.

    Polen
  • Trump, Clinton and the essence of a representative democracy

    Legitimacy in the political sense can be defined as an inquiry into the justification for the exercise of public authority. Or put differently: it is the reason why I, being part of society, should accept laws and regulations that bind me.

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  • The Democratic Ideal in Light of the Brexit

    The day after the “Brexit”-referendum, with a majority of 51.9% voting to leave the European Union, some speak of the success of democracy (“the people have spoken”). Already, there are calls for referenda in other countries to let the people speak there, too. This suggests that independently of our...

    PCE Europe1
  • Extraterritorial human rights obligations to protect refugees

    It took quite a while before the European countries realized and recognized that the influx from asylum-seekers via the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey into the European Union is not just a matter of controlling the outside borders of the Union, but also a humanitarian and human rights issue. Some...

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  • A Refugee Law Clinic in Maastricht

    After months of news about asylum seekers dying in the Mediterranean Sea, weeks of steadily increasing influx of people from the eastern borders of the EU, and witnessing the temporary exit of Germany from the Schengen agreement last weekend, the Maastricht University Faculty of Law has announced...

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