Litigating Human Rights of the Mind
Last week, two U.S. courts for the first time found Meta and Google (YouTube) liable for inflicting harm on users and for violating consumer protection law. These rulings have a signalling effect on Europe, and initial reactions have already placed great hope in them. Human rights organisations celebrated them as a “watershed” for big tech accountability. The rulings were based on consumer protection law and negligence (tort law). Nonetheless, they could arguably be a potential driver for human rights litigation.
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From Security to Economics
Last week, by adopting Regulation 2025/2600, the Council effectively froze Russian state assets permanently. They had already been frozen under the EU sanctions regime which required unanimous renewal every six months. In our view, this permanent freezing under Article 122(1) TFEU remains primarily designed to address matters of foreign policy and violates the conferral of competence. In the long term, given that the frozen assets also serve as a security for the newly agreed loan of EUR 90 billion for Ukraine, this will also jeopardize the enforceability of the said collateral.
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