Is constitutional finality feasible or desirable? On the cases for European constitutionalism and a European Constitution

This contribution begins with reciting the facts behind the resignation of the European Commission under Jacques Santer, followed by theoretical considerations on the significance of trust and reputation from the principal-agent-theory perspective. The third part puts the emphasis on discussing as to which extent a loss of trust and reputation had an influence in the resignation of the Santer-Commission. The author concludes that the Santer-Commission underestimated the increased power of the European Parliament. The inadequate information policy and the increasing practice of manipulating documents led to a loss of trust. After the threshold had been crossed in connection with the BSE-scandal further violations finally led to the destruction of reputation of the Santer-Commission.institutions; enlargement; majority voting; Council of Ministers; European Parliament

European Law – Implementing EC directives on consumer protection – short-term choices by the UK

Article explaining the aspirations and processes involved in implementation of EC directives within the domestic system, with particular reference to the UK practice in implementing EC directives on consumer protection. Article by Professor Stephen Weatherill (University of Nottingham) published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

The impact of the rulings of 21 December 2023 on the structure of EU sports law

The three rulings of 21 December 2023 make three changes to the way we understand the structure of EU sports law. I examine all three in this paper, but I do not think any of the changes are radical. Things have changed – but not much, and the fundamentals of EU sports law, nurtured by the Court in case law that commenced in 1974, are untouched by the Court’s latest three rulings. To be clear: my concern in this paper is only with the structure of EU sports law. For UEFA, and in particular for its power to act as a ‘gatekeeper’ through a system of prior approval for new competitions offered by third parties, things have changed a lot, but that is a separate issue

The European Sports Act: a proposal to improve sports governance through EU legislation

Sports organisations are poorly governed. Corruption and bribery have contaminated the activities of federations, major sporting events now habitually raise human rights concerns, the welfare of athletes is inadequately protected, while women remain under-represented in most decision-making bodies. The time is right for change. In this article, we propose to effect this change through regulatory intervention: a European Sports Act. We briefly review current sources of momentum in favour of reforming sports governance. Then, we make the case for the European Union to adopt legislation designed to improve standards of governance in sport, arguing that the EU is not only the best available actor, but also that it has the constitutional authority to regulate the sector. We formulate a European vision of sport based on the case law of the Court of Justice, existing EU sports policies, as well as Member States’ sports legislation. Specific legislative wording for the European Sports Act is proposed

Engaging with the EU in order to minimise its impact: sport and the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon

The absence of explicit reference to sport in the EU Treaties has allowed the Court and the Commission room to require sport to adjust to the standards required by EU law. Sporting federations typically assert a need for a wider zone of autonomy than the Court and Commission have been prepared to grant, but, unable to persuade the Member States that they deserve exemption from the application of the Treaty, sports bodies have increasingly been induced to develop strategies of co-existence with the EU. This article shows how they were able to exert influence in both the Convention on the Future of Europe and the subsequent intergovernmental conference in order to secure recognition of sport’s special characteristics within the Treaty, albeit in ambiguous form. Sports bodies engage with the EU precisely in order to minimise its impact. The relevant provisions of Treaty of Lisbon dealing with sport are examined to show that they leave open scope for future contestation about the interaction between EU law and policy and systems of sports governance

Automatic sizing functions for unstructured surface mesh generation

Accurate sizing functions are crucial for efficient generation of high-quality meshes, but to define the sizing function is often the bottleneck in complicated mesh generation tasks because of the tedious user interaction involved. We present a novel algorithm to automatically create high-quality sizing functions for surface mesh generation. First, the tessellation of a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model is taken as the background mesh, in which an initial sizing function is defined by considering geometrical factors and user-specified parameters. Then, a convex nonlinear programming problem is formulated and solved efficiently to obtain a smoothed sizing function that corresponds to a mesh satisfying necessary gradient constraint conditions and containing a significantly reduced element number. Finally, this sizing function is applied in an advancing front mesher. With the aid of a walk-through algorithm, an efficient sizing-value query scheme is developed. Meshing experiments of some very complicated geometry models are presented to demonstrate that the proposed sizing-function approach enables accurate and fully automatic surface mesh generation

Efficiency and safety of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): a randomised trial of 45 000 donors

Background: Limits on the frequency of whole blood donation exist primarily to safeguard donor health. However, there is substantial variation across blood services in the maximum frequency of donations allowed. We compared standard practice in the UK with shorter inter-donation intervals used in other countries. Methods: In this parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial, we recruited whole blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 centres across England, UK. By use of a computer-based algorithm, men were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 12-week (standard) versus 10-week versus 8-week inter-donation intervals, and women were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 16-week (standard) versus 14-week versus 12-week intervals. Participants were not masked to their allocated intervention group. The primary outcome was the number of donations over 2 years. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, symptoms potentially related to donation, physical activity, cognitive function, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and is ongoing but no longer recruiting participants. Findings: 45 263 whole blood donors (22 466 men, 22 797 women) were recruited between June 11, 2012, and June 15, 2014. Data were analysed for 45 042 (99·5%) participants. Men were randomly assigned to the 12-week (n=7452) versus 10-week (n=7449) versus 8-week (n=7456) groups; and women to the 16-week (n=7550) versus 14-week (n=7567) versus 12-week (n=7568) groups. In men, compared with the 12-week group, the mean amount of blood collected per donor over 2 years increased by 1·69 units (95% CI 1·59–1·80; approximately 795 mL) in the 8-week group and by 0·79 units (0·69–0·88; approximately 370 mL) in the 10-week group (p<0·0001 for both). In women, compared with the 16-week group, it increased by 0·84 units (95% CI 0·76–0·91; approximately 395 mL) in the 12-week group and by 0·46 units (0·39–0·53; approximately 215 mL) in the 14-week group (p<0·0001 for both). No significant differences were observed in quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function across randomised groups. However, more frequent donation resulted in more donation-related symptoms (eg, tiredness, breathlessness, feeling faint, dizziness, and restless legs, especially among men [for all listed symptoms]), lower mean haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and more deferrals for low haemoglobin (p<0·0001 for each) than those observed in the standard frequency groups. Interpretation: Over 2 years, more frequent donation than is standard practice in the UK collected substantially more blood without having a major effect on donors' quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function, but resulted in more donation-related symptoms, deferrals, and iron deficiency. Funding: NHS Blood and Transplant, National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, and British Heart Foundation