European labour

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|An introduction to European labour law ||
|Overview | |
|Legal systems across continental Europe are largely founded on Roman| |
|Law and Germanic customary law. These havebeen highly influential | |
|in shaping national codes and have given rise to legal frameworks | |
|that rely less on case law and 'precedent' than the common law ||
|jurisdictions operating in Britain and the USA. | |
|The first comprehensive legal codifications during the modern era | |
|appeared in France during the nineteenth century (Napoleonic Law), ||
|and in the newly unified state of Germany in 1900 in the form of the| |
|the German Civil Code (BGB). It is important to note that certain | |
|principles contained in the BGB areimplicit elements in many other | |
|national codes today. These include the right to individual | |
|autonomy, the role of the law to redress the vulnerability of a ||
|weaker party in a commercial relationship (i.e. the employee) and | |
|the concept of 'unjustified enrichment'. | |
|European Union Law ||
|The European Union (EU) has legal personality in its own right. It | |
|may enter into contracts and defend its legal interests without | |
|intervention from any ofthe member states. | |
|The treaty that underpins the EU is primarily concerned with the | |
|economic relationship between states. From the outset, however, ||
|there has been a social dimension in the treaty. This was placed | |
|there by the founding fathers as a 'quid pro quo' for the | |
|wealth-generating benefits of the EU (EEC) for the corporate sector.|...