6 September 2023: Panel 1 on Fundamental Constitutional Principles
The panel on Fundamental Constitutional Principles, chaired by Lord John Thomas, then ELI’s first Vice President and Assessor of the project, was the first of six panels scheduled over the three days of the Conference.
Prof Dr Elise Muir, Project Co-Reporter, Professor of EU Law at KU Leuven, presented the background and objectives of the project and discussed some of the project’s principles in more detail. Marie-Hélène Boulanger, Acting Director of the Directorate for Rule of Law, Fundamental Rights and Democracy of the European Commission, noted the timeliness of the project and its relevance for the Commission’s work in the field. She then went on to present the Commission’s ongoing initiatives. Marko Bošnjak, Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights praised the ELI Draft, before providing comments feedback on some of the Principals. He was followed by Prof Dr Helle Krunke, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Copenhagen and the President of the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL), who thanked ELI for engaging in the design of such an important document, before going on to comment on it.
7 September 2023: Panel 2 on Guiding Principles and Model Rules on Algorithmic Contracts
The second panel was chaired by Prof Dr Pascal Pichonnaz, ELI President and Professor of law at the University of Fribourg. Prof Dr Christian Twigg-Flesner, Co-Reporter and Professor of Contract and Consumer Law at the University of Warwick presented the current draft. Ursula Pachl, Deputy Director General of BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, congratulated ELI on its and thanked it for its leadership in this field. She opined that the output will be relevant for the European Commission and provided her views on some of the Principles. Pachl was followed by Rania Wazir, co-founder and chief technology officer of leiwand.ai, who talked on several matters pertaining to AI systems, in particular when used as assistants. Martins Prieditis, Deputy Head of Unit responsible for the European Union’s consumer law in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) of the European Commission welcomed ELI report and, among others, said that it would be useful for the Commission’s digital fitness check.
7 September 2023: Panel 3 on the ELI-Mount Scopus European Standards of Judicial Independence
Lord Thomas chaired the next panel at which Prof Dr Fryderyk Zoll, Project Co-Reporter, spoke. He explained the background of the project and emphasised that its aim is to ensure a balance between different interests on the subject of an independent but effective judiciary that forms a part of society. Dalia Vasarienė, President of the European Network of Council for the Judiciary (ENCJ) and a judge of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, presented the ENCJ’s on the judicial independence. This was followed by Đuro Sessa, the President of European Association of Judges and First Vice-President of the International Association of Judges, who discussed the approaches developed with regard to judicial independence by the Consultative Council of European Judges of the Council of Europe (CCJE), of whom he was the President from 2017–2019. Finally, Eva Wendler, a judge at the Federal Administrative Court in Austria and Vice-President of the Association of European Administrative Judges (AEAJ), where she co-chairs its working group on ‘Independence and Efficiency’, said that she was grateful to ELI for adding this topic, which is not of primary interest to the general public, to its agenda. She went on to discuss various recent cases in the field.
7 September 2023: Panel 4 on Third Party Funding of Litigation (TPLF)
The above panel was chaired by Lord John Thomas, who handed the floor to Prof Dr Susanne Augenhofer, Project Co-Reporter, after opening it. Augenhofer informed those present about ELI’s project, under which a set of principles aimed at helping parties entering into funding agreements and at inspiring legislators will be drawn. Dr Andreas Stein, Head of the Civil Justice Unit at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice, spoke about the Commission’s work on TPLF and its action plan. In particular, he said that the Commission is undertaking a mapping study and, based on the results, it will assess how to proceed. Susan Dunn, Director of the Association of Litigation Funders and co-founder of Harbour Litigation Funding, spoke about the legal difficulties of TPLF from the industry’s perspective and welcomed the approach of ELI’s principles. Harold Kim, Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice-President at the US Chamber of Commerce, spoke about global challenges in the TPLF industry and warned about its potential risks.
8 September 2023: Panel 5 on Guiding Principles on Implementing Workers’ Right to Disconnect
The above panel was chaired by Judge Anne Birgitte Gammeljord, then ELI’s Second Vice-President and Assessor of the project. Prof Dr Karine Lempen from the University of Geneve and Prof Dr Luca Ratti from the University of Luxembourg, Project Reporters, opened the panel by presenting the recently approved ELI Principles. Tina Weber, Research Manager at the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), introduced Eurofound’s work on the right to disconnect and commented on ELI’s work. Krisztina Boros, Policy Officer at the Unit Future of Work, Youth Employment, at the European Commission, introduced the Commission’s work on the right to disconnect, before reflecting on ELI’s. On the former, Boros said that the Commission conducted a study on telework and the right to disconnect, which looked at the legal, economic and social fields, but also trends and the potential evolution of challenges and opportunities.
8 September 2023: Panel 6 on Access to Digital Assets
The final panel was on the second instalment of ELI’s project on Access to Digital Assets, dealing with enforcement. The panel, which discussed the draft ELI Principles in the field, was chaired by Aneta Wiewiórowska-Domagalska, ELI Executive Committee Members and Assessor of the project. Project Co-Reporter Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell (Associate Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid) presented the draft Principles, focusing on use cases and key challenges. Co-Reporter Jos Uitdehaag (1st Vice-President of the International Union of Judicial Officers (UIHJ)) presented the UIHJ's work, in particular its Global Code of Enforcement, and spoke about the challenges judicial officers face in practice when it comes to the enforcement of proceedings on digital assets. Louise Gullifer (Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge) shared her comments on the scope and content of the ELI project, especially in light of the on-going work of UNIDROIT in the field. Claire Harrop (Senior Associate at Freshfields) reflected on the Draft ELI Principles from the point of view of legal practice, focusing in particular on the definition of digital assets and jurisdictional difficulties.
All panels were followed by lively Q&A sessions.
ELI is very grateful to all the speakers for their invaluable contributions.
