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The Legal Effects of EU Soft Law

Theory, Language and Sectoral Insights

9781802208900 Edward Elgar Publishing

Elgar Studies in European Law and Policy

Edited by Petra Lea Láncos, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary, Napoleon Xanthoulis, Lecturer in Law, University of Southampton, UK and Luis Arroyo Jiménez, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Publication Date: 2023 ISBN: 978 1 80220 890 0 Extent: 268 pp

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This incisive book evaluates the legal effects of soft law, its foundations and how they behave in some of the most innovative areas of EU law. Combining theory, language and sectoral insights, this comprehensive review uses case studies to shed new light on the three core areas of soft law.

The book opens with an exploration of the meaning and scope of EU soft law’s legal effects from a theoretical and doctrinal perspective. Chapters analyse the role, contribution and broader legal effectiveness of the language employed by EU authorities when drafting soft law instruments. Finally, in a ground-up approach to the research topic, the book discusses soft law’s legal effects within three areas of EU legislation, namely financial supervision, technical standardisation and telecommunications law.

Advancing a legal and argumentative toolkit to evaluate and improve EU soft law’s persuasiveness, this title will be advantageous to academics, practitioners and policy-makers with specialisations in European law, constitutional and administrative law and regulation and governance.

Critical Acclaim

‘This outstanding book is an innovative and important contribution to our knowledge and rethinking of soft law, relations to hard law and normative effects. The many theoretical insights and the detailed analysis of normativity, language, and financial supervision, standardization, and telecommunications will be essential reading for all interested in the subject.’
– Francis Snyder, Peking University School of Transnational Law, China

‘A brilliant contribution to the analysis of EU soft law, but also of soft law in general.’
– Jean-Bernard Auby, Sciences Po Paris, France

Contributors

Contributors: Corina Andone, Luis Arroyo Jiménez, Robert Böttner, Florin Coman-Kund, Mariolina Eliantonio, Emanuel Kollmann, Petra Lea Láncos, Danai Petropoulou Ionescu, Verena Rošic Feguš, Eljalill Tauschinsky, Annalisa Volpato, Wolfgang Weiß

Contents

Contents:

1 Introduction to The Legal Effects of EU Soft Law 1
Petra Lea Láncos and Luis Arroyo Jiménez

PART I THEORY
2 Beyond bindingness: A typology of EU soft law legal effects 9
Luis Arroyo Jiménez

3 Reconsidering the legal effect of EU soft law in national
implementation: Bindingness from an individual rights
perspective 33
Wolfgang Weiß

4 EU soft law: validity, normativity and ‘bindingness’ reviewed 53
Verena Rošic Feguš

PART II LANGUAGE
5 Words are stones: Constructing bindingness through
language in EU environmental soft law 76
Danai Petropoulou Ionescu and Mariolina Eliantonio

6 Verbal markers of ‘softness’ in EU law?
A computer-based analysis to delimit soft law and hard
law focusing on directive-like recommendations 111
Petra Lea Láncos and Eljalill Tauschinsky

7 A legal-argumentative framework for persuasive EU soft
law: The case of the European Commission’s recommendations 142
Corina Andone and Floran Comand-Kund

PART III SECTORAL INSIGHTS
8 The comply-or-explain mechanism in the European
Supervisory Authorities, or: does Meroni allow nudging? 176
Robert Böttner

9 The legal effects of harmonised standards in EU law:
From hard to soft law, and back? 193
Annalisa Volpato

10 Hard rules for soft law: The case of European Union
telecommunications law 213
Emanuel Kollmann

11 Conclusions to The Legal Effects of EU Soft Law 233
Petra Lea Láncos and Luis Arroyo Jiménez