ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

Stephanie Law: The Constitutionalisation of
Consumer Protection Law: An Analysis of the
CJEU’s Boundary-breaking Jurisprudence
Engaging the example of consumer protection
law, existing within national legal systems, as well as
at the EU and indeed international levels, I will firstly
illustrate the foundations of its establishment as a
distinct category of law, and explain the way in which
– via the breaking down of rigid legal categories – it
has come to encompass part of the interlegality of
EU law. The CJEU, in a line of preliminary references
made from the national courts, has interpreted – albeit
not necessarily in an explicit manner – Union
law and its foundational principles of equivalence
and effectiveness in such a way as to provide for the
deconstruction of the boundaries between private
law and fundamental rights protection (particularly in
terms of Art.47 CFR) and substantive and procedural
legal protection. Consumer protection is particularly
interesting as it reflects a rather distinct area in terms
of the CJEU’s exercise of its jurisdiction and expansion
of the scope of Union law beyond that initially
or expressly set out by the Union legislature, that is,
the shift from legislative intervention to judicialisation.
To conclude, I will draw some conclusions as to the
impact of this jurisprudence on the constitutionalisation
of consumer protection – and more broadly,
private – law.
Federico Suárez Ricaurte: Foreign direct investment
against Sovereignty of the Third World
Countries as an organization in the international
legal order
The argument that I will develop is that private property
rights of the foreign investor prevailed over sovereignty
of Third World Countries in the international legal
order. Since the last three decades, in the economic
and political field, the institutional order has increased
the protection of the foreign investor from an ideological
and institutional realm. The institutional framework
compound by international economic institutions, free
trade agreements or bilateral investment treaties, and
leading rulings of arbitral tribunals, among other international
and national tools are mainly designed to
encourage the assets of the foreign investor, rather
than self-determination of the countries, human rights,
welfare of the population, and protection of the environment.
This set of institutions, treaties and theories
has the power to delineate the political economy of the
countries, depriving them in several cases of the basic
policies that a country can adopt to achieve welfare.
52 EXPLORING OTHERNESS I
Panel formed with individual proposals.
Participants Ligia Fabris Campos
Joseph Corkin
Fernando Muñoz León
Name of Chair Ligia Fabris Campos
Room DOR24 1.501
Ligia Fabris Campos: Trans*’ rights in Brazil and
Germany: Legal interpretations of Harm to self?
The objective of my proposal is to analyse transgenders
rights in Brazil and Germany in light of the
concept of ‘harm to self’. I believe that the use of this
concept combined with the perspective from gender
studies could be a mechanism to understand
the contradictions, setbacks and advancements as
well as the questions upon state intervention in the
private sphere of trans* people in both countries. In
Brazil, until 1997, the sex reassignment surgery used
to be considered a crime. Although there has been
no change in criminal rules, today this surgery is allowed
and performed free of charge in public hospitals.
Germany has also a vivid debate on the theme.
In 2011 the German Constitutional Court has declared
unconstitutional the requirement of the surgery and
sterilisation as prerequisites for changing the registered
gender. I maintain that in both countries those
changes were based on legal interpretations of the
concept of ‘harm to self’.
Joseph Corkin: Who, then, in [transnational
constitutional] law, is my neighbour? Limiting
the argument from external effects
Constitutional pluralism, conflicts-law-constitutionalism
and integration as demoicracy are all used to
justify the EU as ensuring states consider their external
effect on neighbours, but also that there are limits to
this duty to maintain the idea of the state as a selfgoverning
political community. Determining our duties
to non-constituents raises moral philosophy because
the ethical ideal of pure impartiality (that everyone has
an equal claim to our attention and the ultimate relevant
constituency is infinite) encounters a reality in which
we only seem capable of transcending pursuit of selfinterest
within communities whose members share
our (constructed) histories/cultures; their boundedness
essential to developing bonds of mutual trust
and respect. This makes a degree of partiality neither
a human weakness nor a psychological limitation, but a
morally justifiable part of living among those with whom
we share special connections and through which we
fulfil our social potential.
Concurring panels 89