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This article discusses the Union's general inspirational idea of creating a 'common sense of justice' and its implications with reference to the development of the European Public Prosecutor. When the Commission presented its vision of an area of justice, it declared that the 'ambition is to give citizens a common sense of justice throughout the Union'. Although a sense of justice seems to be something psychological and emotional, it also seems almost inevitably to promote EU integration. The article discusses the various roles that the EPPO may have in contributing to a common sense of justice and in particular the EPPO's objective of achieving a Union-wide coherent practice on prosecution and penalty levels. It analyses critically whether this practice – by mediating between the different 'common' senses of justice in each Member State – is capable of contributing to a common sense of justice.

The interdisciplinary series "Law & Literature" takes a systematic look at the correlation between literature and the law. The studies presented in this series analyze the complex interrelation between two cultural spheres which are not only at the basis of Western Culture and Society, but share in a common focus on texts. Bringing together contributions by jurists, historians of law, legal philosophers, and specialists in literary and cultural studies, this series reflects a trend in current inter- and transdisciplinary research which has recently shown rapid growth both in Europe and the United States.

Intellectual property right (IPR) infringement has taken and increasingly takes place in the online environment, in particular on the internet, which has raised concerns on many different levels, and has led to a number of recent European initiatives. A number of legislative measures have been adopted at both international and European levels whose purposes are to strengthen and harmonise the protection of IPR. These measures include remedies, which aim to enable rights holders and law enforcement authorities, such as prosecutors, to enforce IPR in an effective manner. However, the provisions in the abovementioned legislation are, for the most part, not drafted in ways that specifically address how to prevent or combat online IPR infringement, but are -merely in the form of minimum requirements, which leave room for individual Member States to adopt and apply specific national measures.The main purpose of this study commissioned by the EUIPO is, therefore, to establish whether and to what extent a number of specific legislative measures, which can be applied to prevent or combat IPR infringement in the online environment, are available in the Member States. The legislative measures that the study will focus on are measures that can be characterised as providing 'practical solutions to practical problems', such as the option to require that an online service provider discloses the identity of a customer who is suspected of infringing the IPR rights of a third party and the option to apply the European Investigation Order (EIO) to crimes involving IPR.