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"his book is based on a report submitted to the European Parliament, whose aim was to provide a comparative analysis of legal provisions, doctrine and case-law on locus standi before civil, administrative and criminal courts of some selected legal systems and before the EU courts. Apart from the EU legal system, the study focuses on the legal systems of nine Member States of the European Union (Belgium; England and Wales; France; Germany; Hungary; Italy; Netherlands; Poland; Sweden) and the legal system of one non-EU Member State (Turkey). On the basis of the findings, a conclusive chapter stresses the congruities and differences between the legal standing criteria in the Member States, on the one hand, and before the EU Courts, on the other. Moreover, the findings with regard to the different fields of law in the Member States are compared. On the basis of a thorough analysis of the status quo in the EU and Member States legal systems, recommendations have also been developed, including suggestions on the possible improvements to the standing requirements in the EU and national legal systems."--Publisher

Environmental policy is an area which has been quite heavily proceduralised and is a rather peculiar example of 'multi-level proceduralisation' because of the presence of the Aarhus Convention. This paper explores the relevant procedural provisions taken in the field of environmental law and in particular in implementation of the Aarhus Convention, and examines the case law which has involved these provisions. This case law is specifically discussed as concerns the way in which the Court of Justice deals with the interaction between the relevant secondary rules and the general principles of effectiveness and effective judicial protection, as well as Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights concerning the right to an effective remedy. It is shown that it is difficult to distill a consistent approach on the part of the Court with regards to this interaction, and that much depends on the specifics of the case and the question posed by the referring court. However, with the latest case law, despite the apparent lack of underlying rights which would be able to trigger the applicability of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Court of Justice seems to be moving towards a heavier involvement of Article 47 of the Charter and, consequently, of a 'language of rights', which increasingly plays a pivotal role in boosting the effectiveness of the Aarhus Convention.

The reliance on private parties is a global tendency in modern regulation. One peculiar regulatory technique which foresees a core role for private parties is that of European standardization. The employment of standards for regulatory purposes delivers enormous benefits for the harmonization process and is today a key factor in the EU's trade policy; however, the process of European standardization raises a number of concerns from a rule of law perspective, which are linked to 'hybrid nature' of the process, which foresees an intertwined public and private decision-making process. The aim of this contribution is to discuss the role of public law in the process of European standardization. After discussing the legal nature of European harmonized standards, the current application and potential applicability of general principles of administrative law is discussed and the necessity and availability of judicial control is examined.

Ex ante control mechanisms in the EU standardization process exhibit several shortcomings. For this reason, it seems necessary to establish whether the ex post judicial review of the process may compensate for these shortcomings. This article aims at identifying the possible gaps of judicial protection in the review of EU harmonized standards. To this end, the mechanisms of judicial supervision available in the EU legal system are reviewed in order to establish whether the current level of judicial control of the EU standardization process complies with the principle of effective judicial protection. The article first considers the possibility of a direct challenge against a European harmonized standard and subsequently the situation of an indirect challenge against a European harmonized standard through the preliminary ruling procedure. It concludes that the current system of judicial protection of the EU standardization process does not respect the principle of effective judicial protection.

European policies are increasingly implemented through the joint production, gathering, management and exchange of information. These information exchange mechanisms may pose problems in the context of judicial protection because it may be difficult to identify the actor responsible for a piece of information which was the basis for a final measure, and the act of information sharing may not be challengeable before a court. The purpose of this article is to examine the gaps in judicial protection – if any – arising from the widespread use of information sharing activities in European administrative law. After an overview of the information exchange and management activities in European administrative law, the gaps in judicial protection are identified and discussed in the context of two case studies. The central argument is that although the system of administrative decision-making is becoming increasingly integrated, the disintegrated system of judicial protection poses a serious threat to the principle of effective judicial protection in information sharing activities that are aimed at implementing EU policies. The article ends with recommendations on how these judicial protection gaps could be filled.

The issue of collective redress in the European Union (EU) has been gaining increasing attention thanks to recent initiatives on the part of the European Institutions. European action in the field of collective litigation in competition and consumer matters is, however, still at an early stage of development. In environmental matters, however, while not primarily EU-driven, there is already a well-established framework of collective litigation established by the Aarhus Convention. The subject matter of this article is whether the mechanisms of collective redress envisaged by this international Convention are working within the EU legal system as they should. After providing some background on the special features of environmental law (which affect their enforcement modalities) and an overview of the mechanisms of collective litigation in the Member States, this article will contextualize the issue of collective redress in environmental matters in the framework of the Aarhus Convention, and will explore the current obstacles faced in the enforcement of EU environmental law before national courts. This analysis provides some ground to draw a conclusion as to whether the current system of collective redress in environmental matters can be regarded as a model for the current debate on this topic for competition and consumer issues.