The provisions of EU directives do not have horizontal direct effect. This contribution explains how that initial choice and statement made by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Marshall came to be gradually undermined by the numerous exceptions to this rule. If viewed together, they make one wonder about the nature of the present-day rule and the exceptions, in particular in areas like employment law or various aspects of prohibiti...

This paper examines the direct horizontal effect of the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (hereinafter “the Charter”), the indirect extraterritorial application of the Charter’s provisions across borders of the European Union and an atypical application of the Charter in a recent case brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter “CJEU”), namely Privacy International. In t...

The concept of the essence of a fundamental right – set out in Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the „Charter”) – operates as a constant reminder that our core values as Europeans are absolute. In other words, they are not up for balancing. As the seminal judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the „CJEU”) in Schrems shows, where a measure imposes a limitation on the exercise o...