The Ship-Source Pollution Case C-440/05, Commission v. Council, Judgment of 23 October 2007 (Grand Chamber)
Posted: 8 Jan 2013
Date Written: January 2008
Abstract
The judgment under scrutiny here, the so called Ship-Source Pollution case, is the ruling that all European criminal lawyers and everyone else interested in the delimitation of competences in the EU have been waiting for – the first follow up to the landmark decision of C-176/03, Commission v. Council (referred to below as C-176/03). The paper starts by briefly reiterating the background of the case and then outlines the opinion of AG Mazák and subsequently the Court of Justice’s judg- ment. Thereafter, the case comment proceeds to look at the Court’s reasoning and discusses it in the context of the ruling of C-176/03. It will be demonstrated that the question of EC (environmental) criminal law is far from an unambiguous matter and will, regardless of whether the newly agreed Lisbon Treaty enters into force, remain a contested, albeit increasingly hot topic.
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