Recent developments in the law governing the free movement of goods in the EC's internal market

Abstract

This report surveys recent developments in the law governing the free movement of goods in the EC. This covers both the application of Articles 28–30 EC to control national measures that obstruct inter-State trade and Article 95 EC as the source of the EC's programme of legislative harmonisation. It shows how and why private law in general and contract law in particular have come to be affected by the law of the EC's internal market. The report demonstrates that the judgments of the European Court in Keck and in Tobacco Advertising are significant for their recognition that the mere fact of diversity between national laws is not of itself an adequate reason for EC law to intervene in local regulatory autonomy. This may, in short, assist arguments designed to shelter national contract law from the effect of EC law, but it is explained that, despite a degree of unavoidable ambiguity in the state of the law, there are nonethless circumstances in which national private law and EC trade law must seek a modus vivendi. More generally it is argued that the growth of a ‘European contract law’ provides an excellent case study for examination of constitutionally and culturally fundamental questions about the desirable degree of centralisation in Europe.