The aim of this article is threefold. First, it develops the premises on which the Special Issue “A Union of Crises: In Search of Constitutional Resilience” is based: that the omnipresence of diverse crises has become an inescapable reality for the EU, and that the low likelihood of Treaty change requires a reorientation in legal literature towards a more systematic exploration and conceptualisation of EU crisis law that transcends the hitherto focus on single-crisis measures. Second, the paper attempts to lay the groundwork for such a reorientation by offering a meta-view of what EU crisis law entails by outlining the constitutional contours of EU crisis law. It argues that the concept of EU crisis law is a combination of constitutional, international, hybrid, exceptional and legislative models of crisis accommodation, and demonstrates how these have interacted in the responses to past and present crises. Finally, the paper demonstrates how the remaining papers that form part of this Special Issue advance a meta-narrative of EU crisis and begin to provide answers to some of the most pressing issues that this nascent discipline is to address.

Emergency law serves the dual purpose of granting public authorities the powers to respond to emergencies whilst simultaneously limiting the use of such powers so as to prevent their abuse. To this end, it is crucial that emergency law clearly outlines its own scope by delimiting the grounds that permit the invocation of emergency powers. This article argues that defining those grounds requires distinguishing emergency from normalcy and disentangling it from the broader notion of crisis. Accordingly, the contribution investigates the extent to which a definition of emergency can be accommodated within EU constitutional law. To do so, it draws on examples from European emergency law, understood as encompassing both EU Member States’ laws and the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). The article shows that the vague emergency terminology employed in the EU Treaties hinders the identification of a horizontal definition of emergency and risks casting doubt on the constitutional legitimacy of emergency responses by the Union and its Member States.

While the European Union was recently affected by four major and multifaceted crises which gave rise to litigation, the response of the European Court of Justice to these events has remained understudied. From a close reading of the procedural features, the legal reasoning and timing of four key judgments concerning measures adopted in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic, this article sketches a broader narrative about the Court’s response to crises which transcends the specificities of the legal issues and the context of each case. The findings suggest that the Court is likely to adjudicate a crisis case by applying the expedited procedure depending on political developments, assign a larger chamber, carefully justify its reasoning with references to settled case-law, conduct a context-sensitive balancing exercise, and deliver a decision at a politically relevant time.

To date, Article 2 TEU has mainly been construed as a negative obligation to refrain from violating the values enshrined therein. In light of the Repubblika case law, which established a duty to prevent any regression in the protection of Article 2 TEU values, this paper considers whether Article 2 TEU can be construed in such a way as to bring about a positive obligation on the part of the Member States to take preventive action to safeguard the EU’s foundational values and thus prevent (or at least mitigate the risk of) violations of those values. We first consider the doctrinal and normative bases for such an obligation. We then argue that such an obligation arises whenever Article 2 TEU values are presently under threat (or when a threat is imminent), and when such a threat is sufficiently grave or systemic. We believe that an interpretation of Article 2 TEU that requires Member States to act, at source, to prevent national actors from committing violations of EU values, contributes to enhancing constitutional resilience in the EU. Consequently, we propose a novel legal approach that could, under certain circumstances, better equip the EU to address future threats to Article 2 TEU.

This article examines the democratic control over the European Union’s unilateral trade policy. It takes as a starting point how crises like COVID-19 and geopolitical tensions have led to the “weaponisation” of trade, making global commerce unpredictable. The EU has responded by modernising its trade instruments, such as anti-dumping measures and new regulations like the Anti-Coercion Instrument. However, these instruments often allow the European Commission to act without parliamentary approval, challenging democratic accountability. The article questions whether a democratic, yet effective, unilateral trade policy is possible for the EU. It reviews the processes behind the EU’s unilateral trade policy, critiques current legitimacy mechanisms and proposes reforms to enhance democratic oversight. Ultimately, it argues that a degree of democratisation of trade policy is feasible without Treaty changes, contributing to broader discussions on maintaining democratic control over executive actions in crises.

Foundation models – models trained on broad data that can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks – can pose significant risks, ranging from intimate image abuse, cyberattacks, to bioterrorism. To reduce these risks, policymakers are starting to impose obligations on the developers of these models. However, downstream developers – actors who fine-tune or otherwise modify foundational models – can create or amplify risks by improving a model’s capabilities or compromising its safety features. This can make rules on upstream developers ineffective. One way to address this issue could be to impose direct obligations on downstream developers. However, since downstream developers are numerous, diverse, and rapidly growing in number, such direct regulation may be both practically challenging and stifling to innovation. A different approach would be to require upstream developers to mitigate downstream modification risks (e.g., by restricting what modifications can be made). Another approach would be to use alternative policy tools (e.g., clarifying how existing tort law applies to downstream developers or issuing voluntary guidance to help mitigate downstream modification risks). We expect that regulation on upstream developers to mitigate downstream modification risks will be necessary. Although further work is needed, regulation of downstream developers may also be warranted where they retain the ability to increase risk to an unacceptable level.

This article critically examines the concept of systemic risk as used in the EU Act in relation to General-Purpose AI Models (GPAIMs). It argues that rather than resolving uncertainty, the Act institutionalises it, transforming systemic risk into a flexible yet uncertain legal category. Drawing on legal theory and sociological perspectives – especially systems theory – this paper shows how systemic risk functions less as a concrete threshold for intervention and more as a proxy epistemic uncertainty surrounding GPAIMs. In the analysis, three interrelated consequences are identified: the institutionalisation of regulatory and scientific uncertainty, the delegation of key decisions about the content of systemic risk to private actors, and a regulatory blind spot created by the Act’s conceptual distinction between AI models and AI systems. These developments risk undermining the Act’s goal of legal certainty, exposing the paradox of AI governance: that in attempting to mitigate unknown future risks, the law may instead reproduce regulatory uncertainty.

The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) represents a significant departure from the EU’s traditionally restrained regulatory approach to commercial arbitration. The Act classifies certain use cases of AI in arbitration as potentially “high-risk” and introduces stringent compliance obligations for legal tech providers, arbitral institutions and arbitrators. This article argues that the Act’s application to arbitration disrupts the long-standing balance between party autonomy, procedural flexibility and regulatory oversight that has characterised the EU’s treatment of the field. It also highlights the challenges of reconciling its rigid framework with key aspects of arbitration – namely, party autonomy, confidentiality and procedural flexibility. The article concludes by proposing a full or partial carve-out of commercial arbitration from the scope of the AI Act’s high-risk provisions.

This paper critically assesses the effectiveness of the EU AI Act in regulating artificial intelligence in higher education (AIED), with a focus on how it interacts with existing education regulation. It examines the growing use of high-risk AI systems – such as those used in admissions, assessment, academic progression, and exam proctoring – and identifies key regulatory frictions that arise when AI regulation and education regulation pursue overlapping but potentially conflicting aims. Central to this analysis is the concept of human oversight: while the AI Act frames oversight as a safeguard for accountability and fundamental rights, education regulation emphasises the professional autonomy of teachers and their role in maintaining pedagogical integrity. Yet, the regulatory role of teachers in AI-mediated environments remains unclear. Applying Mousmouti’s effectiveness test, the paper evaluates the AI Act along four dimensions – purpose, coherence, results, and structural integration with the broader legal framework – and argues that legal effectiveness in this context requires a more precise alignment between AI and education regulation.

Recent years have witnessed an extraordinarily swift advancement in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). AI applications like ChatGTP are gaining significant influence on various aspects of life and even ordinary households are nowadays highly digitalised, a trend that will only intensify with the growing proliferation of the Internet of Things.

Armed conflicts create severe risks to human security, including food insecurity, often in contexts where state-based regulation is compromised. This paper examines how private actors – specifically food retailers in Ukraine – have become crucial de facto regulators in managing this risk during the war. We ask: in a regulatory vacuum, how do social expectations and corporate risk management practices shape the governance of essential goods? Drawing on thirty-six semi-structured interviews with Ukrainian residents and a thematic content analysis of 280 public social media posts and comments (Feb 2022 – Dec 2024), we investigate how social expectations function as a form of social regulation, shaping corporate conduct. We find that stakeholders expect companies not only to mitigate their own operational impacts but also to actively address the negative human rights consequences of the conflict itself. Based on these findings, we propose an empirically grounded model of “heightened human rights due diligence” (hHRDD) as an adaptive risk regulation framework. This model offers critical policy guidance for the implementation of instruments like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), particularly for defining corporate responsibilities in conflict-affected and high-risk areas.

This article examines the regulatory dimensions of the UK’s car finance mis-selling scandal, focusing on the structural features of PCP agreements. While current legal interventions emphasise transparency and informed choice regarding commissions, I argue that such measures are poorly equipped to address the embedded inequalities characteristic of intermediated consumer credit markets. PCPs, though marketed as affordable and flexible, routinely give rise to extended credit dependency without securing vehicle ownership for many borrowers. Drawing on Ramsay’s work on credit and distributive justice, the analysis situates PCP finance within broader shifts in welfare provision, income insecurity, and the financialisation of everyday life. It further places recent developments within the longer history of UK financial mis-selling, where commission-based sales models have systematically externalised complexity and risk onto consumers. Rather than treating mis-selling as a failure of commission disclosure, the article invites a more substantive inquiry into how consumer law legitimises forms of market participation that disproportionately burden the financially vulnerable.

Previous research has highlighted several quality-related concerns regarding food supplements available on the market, which compromise their safe consumption. This study evaluates whether the adoption of the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) as a framework for improving supplement quality could enhance quality and safety control practices. The findings are derived from a comparative legal analysis of the Canadian and U.S. legal systems. The results suggest that its application in the Canadian market may serve as an illustration of the Brussels effect in practice. Simultaneously, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) already encourages EU Food Business Operators (FBOs) to utilise the Ph. Eur. when assessing food supplement ingredients. Nevertheless, careful consideration is necessary regarding the extent of regulatory compliance by FBOs to mitigate potential conflicts with existing EU legislation and to prevent delays in innovative developments within the supplement market.

The article examines how the Czech courts addressed restrictions on the right to conduct business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although grounded in the Czech authorities’ response to the health crisis, the analysis extends to broader conclusions about the necessity of upholding rule-of-law principles. The article therefore highlights how constitutional imperatives of proportionality, equality and the justification of government actions must be preserved in judicial review, even in times of crises.

Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (AA), provides that the information disclosed by providers of consumer banking services to persons with disabilities in the European Union must be understandable (the understandability rule), a rule that is especially relevant to access barriers related to neurodiversity. Understandability is an open-textured term which, in the multilayered and pluralistic context of financial services regulation, gives rise to ambiguity as to its scope of application. It is not clear, prima facie, whether the understandability rule merely applies to (1) disclosures required under the AA (the narrow application), or also (2) disclosures regulated by other EU Directives applicable to consumer banking services (e.g., Directive 2023/2225 on consumer credits), and (3) contractual documentation provided in accordance with these EU Directives. This article undertakes this interpretation exercise and concludes that the rule should be applied narrowly, on the basis of established EU interpretation methods (grammar, teleological, systemic and comparative), analysis of the contrast between the AA and its regulatory context, and general regulatory principles.

Two modern trends in insurance are data-intensive underwriting and behaviour-based insurance. Data-intensive underwriting means that insurers analyse more data for estimating the claim cost of a consumer and for determining the premium based on that estimation. Insurers also offer behaviour-based insurance. For example, some car insurers use artificial intelligence (AI) to follow the driving behaviour of an individual consumer in real time and decide whether to offer that consumer a discount. In this paper, we report on a survey of the Dutch population (N = 999) in which we asked people’s opinions about examples of data-intensive underwriting and behaviour-based insurance. The main results include: (i) If survey respondents find an insurance practice unfair, they also find the practice unacceptable. (ii) Respondents find almost all modern insurance practices that we described unfair. (iii) Respondents find practices for which they can influence the premium fairer. (iv) If respondents find a certain consumer characteristic illogical for basing the premium on, then respondents find using the characteristic unfair. (v) Respondents find it unfair if an insurer offers an insurance product only to a specific group. (vi) Respondents find it unfair if an insurance practice leads to the poor paying more. We also reflect on the policy implications of the findings.

EU law lacks a coherent legal framework that adequately defines, protects, and empowers cybersecurity researchers, particularly those operating outside formal institutions. This paper examines how cybersecurity research fits within the evolving EU regulatory landscape, with a particular focus on the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and the NIS2 Directive. It explores the legal ambiguity surrounding researcher status, the conditions for data access and auditing under the DSA, and the challenges posed by current vetting requirements. Drawing on doctrinal legal analysis and interdisciplinary insights from cybersecurity and platform governance, the paper argues that while the DSA provides novel tools such as vetted researcher access and auditing obligations for Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) its structure is better suited for systemic risk research than for adversarial, exploratory cybersecurity testing. The paper concludes that a sustainable model for cybersecurity research governance in the EU must go beyond DSA-style vetting, incorporating flexible mechanisms like coordinated vulnerability disclosure and bug bounty programs, as reflected more directly in the CRA.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in the agrifood sector to improve efficiency, safety and sustainability. The application of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act’s (AI Act) to the broad spectrum of agrifood AI systems has not been thoroughly analyzed. Therefore, this research article explores the AI Act’s application to the agrifood sector by providing an overview of AI systems in the sector and applying the AI Act’s risk-categorisation system to them. Section II provides an outline of the AI Act and its risk categorisation system. Section III gives an overview of agrifood AI systems and explains how the AI Act applies to them. The AI Act is most significantly applicable to AI safety components that are used in agricultural or agroforestry vehicles and other machinery. Although not many, there are also some types of agrifood AI systems that will be prohibited and that will have special transparency requirements under the AI Act. The paper also identifies potential sector-specific challenges such as a risk to food security, an open question regarding the extensiveness of the meaning of ‘AI safety component’ and the inattention of the AI Act to non-human centred values such as the environment, biodiversity and animal welfare.

Case C-646/22 Compass Banca SpA v Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) of 14 November 2024.

In Compass Banca, the CJEU was asked by the referring Italian court if the concept of the average consumer should extend beyond the traditional notion of homo economicus in light of growing awareness of bounded rationality and the risk of cognitive influence in modern market dynamics. The case was eagerly awaited amid increasingly scholarly criticism of the average consumer concept, particularly in digital contexts, where the model of a rational, informed decision-maker would often fail to account for power imbalances embedded in digital architectures. Whereas the court did not fundamentally alter the benchmark, it added a cautious clarification, acknowledging that cognitive biases may constitute one of many constraints impairing the average consumer’s decision-making capacity. However, the influence of cognitive biases alone on the decision-making capacity would be insufficient to render a commercial practice unfair unless it is ‘duly established’ that ‘in the particular circumstances of a specific situation’, the average consumer’s behaviour has been materially distorted.