Data protection litigation – and particularly collective private enforcement (CPE) – is escalating in the EU, as consumer associations and other interest groups pursue legal actions against Tech Giants like Facebook and Uber for GDPR violations. While the concept of private enforcement gains traction, there's a need to systematically map pathways to CPE and assess its effectiveness in providing strong judicial protection, perceived both as an independent entitlement under Article 47 ECFR and as an auxiliary means to safeguard other fundamental rights.

Furthermore, the development triggered by CPE clearly shows how procedural and remedial safeguards are co-constitutive of primary rights and duties, demanding to go beyond the enforcement debate to discuss how litigation influences the way in which data protection law takes shape ‘on the ground’.

Last, but not least, the rise of CPE requires contextualizing data protection litigation within a comprehensive framework that encompasses various stakeholders' fundamental rights – users, consumers, workers, and citizens online and offline. This holistic perspective allows us to analyze the significance of private litigation and collective private enforcement in upholding fundamental rights, preserving public values, and safeguarding general interests.

Against this background, APPLIED has three main objectives:

1. Developing an inclusive overview of CPE application in data protection law across different European nations.
2. Identifying and analyzing obstacles that hinder effective CPE implementation.
3. Exploring CPE's broader implications on data protection rights, obligations, and wider interests.

Project Team:

• Francesca Episcopo (FdR) – Principal Investigator
• Anna Van Duin (FdR)
• Jef Ausloos (IViR)

The seed grant aims to build on Energy Labels, an ongoing UvA project at the Science Faculty that aims to quantify the energy consumption of digital services in real-time. This project adds to that with an interdisciplinary approach that explores the real-world usage and enforcement of the outcomes of the Energy Labels project. By doing that it aims to promote a reduction in the ecological footprint of digital services. 

The interdisciplinary team exists of researchers from the faculties of Law, Economics and Business, and Science. They will work on designing, implementing, and standardising the energy labels. By exploring how the Energy Labels tool can be used to induce a real-world reduction in carbon footprint, the project intends to run a pilot experiment to nudge users towards energy-saving behaviour. 

This project looks at the environmental impact of digital services in the Netherlands, where data centres consume three times more energy than the national railway company. Through behavioural interventions, law, and policy changes, the project aims to achieve significant savings in CO2 emissions at a national and potentially international level.

Project team:

• Dr. Candida Leone (FdR)
• Dr. Anuj Pathania (FNWI)
• Dr. Giorgia Romagnoli (FEB)

The global economy’s current organization of supply chains poses environmental challenges and is vulnerable to environmental change. New legislation is holding firms responsible for environmental harm, but little is known about the firms’ adjustments to supply chains. 

This project reveals the potential of legislation around sustainable supply chains and aims to project into the future how supply chains may change as a result of law and a range of other factors. The findings may prove valuable to businesses, civil society, and governments who are looking to develop strategies and regulatory instruments for sustainable supply chains. 

The project combines expertise from Law, Political Economy, and Computational Science to develop a new methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of sustainable supply chain regulations in reducing environmental risks.

Project team:

• Klaas Eller (FdR)
• Mike Lees (FNWI)
• Diliara Valeeva (FMG)
• Luc Fransen (FMG)

De vraag rijst in hoeverre het privaatrecht, in het licht van deze recente ontwikkelingen, de oplossing van actuele maatschappelijke vraagstukken beperkt of juist faciliteert. De nationale doctrines en regelgeving kunnen in de weg staan aan oplossingen, maar ze kunnen ook dusdanig ontwikkeld en aangepast worden dat ze hieraan bijdragen. Hiervoor is onderzoek noodzakelijk op het gebied van privaatrecht, meer in het bijzonder: het integraal privaatrecht.

Het onderzoeksprogramma ‘Integraal Privaatrecht’ is verankerd in ACT, waarbij zowel de nationale, Europese en internationale dimensies van het privaatrecht in onderlinge samenhang worden bestudeerd. Het onderzoeksprogramma wil tegelijk bijdragen aan de wetenschappelijke grondslag van het onderwijs dat de Afdeling Privaatrecht verzorgt. Onderzoeksgestuurd onderwijs berust immers op hoogwaardig wetenschappelijk onderzoek dat door de academische staf wordt verricht op de onderwezen terreinen.

Onderzoeksveld

Het onderzoeksprogramma gaat uit van een visie op het privaatrecht als integraal terrein. Traditioneel privaatrechtelijk onderzoek, nationaal of internationaal, berust doorgaans op ‘leerstukonderzoek’, geconcentreerd op de ontwikkeling van bepaalde noties of de invulling van ‘gaten’ op een deelgebied van het privaatrecht.

De geschetste ontwikkelingen vereisen echter een vernieuwende, meer overstijgende benadering die verbreding en verdieping voorstaat door kruisbestuiving tussen verschillende deelgebieden en benaderingen binnen het privaatrecht in zijn integraliteit. Het gaat erom systematisch (samen) te werken vanuit verschillende deeldisciplines van het privaatrecht. Daarbij speelt intra- en interdisciplinariteit een rol. Belangrijke vragen zijn daarbij: hoe voltrekken deze ontwikkelingen zich op de relevante deelgebieden van het privaatrecht en welke overkoepelende discussies en patronen zijn daarin te onderkennen? Onder welke omstandigheden en voorwaarden functioneren bijvoorbeeld open normen in verschillende deelgebieden van het privaatrecht: als een beperking of juist als een facilitator voor de oplossing van maatschappelijke vraagstukken.

N-EXTLAW is an ERC-Funded Research Project Hosted by ACT | Towards a Non-Extractive Future

Law as a vehicle for social change | Mainstreaming Non-Extractive Economic Practices (N-EXTs). The ultimate goal of N-EXTLAW is to achieve a non-extractive, sustainable economic model. Our mission is to understand how we can rethink our legal framework to support sustainable economic practices. In this way, law provides actions with meaning and can be used as a vehicle for social change.

‘Rent and the City’ is a small series of events hosted at the Amsterdam Center for Transformative Private Law in 2021/22 that intends to offer a forum for conversations on the role of law in fostering (or precluding) access to housing in global cities, at the boundaries of law, political economy, finance and activism. ‘Rent’ in the series title hints at two dimensions which have recently been the object of much debate and controversy: the rental of housing units for residential or leisurely purpose, on the one hand; and the financialisation of real estate in large cities, on the other hand. With an expected 68% of the world population projected to settle in urban areas by 2050, big city housing will be a rising policy concern for the future, bringing an array of legal fields from private law to human rights to the table. The second event in this series will ask the question "Who owns the city"? and will discuss urban property regimes in and beyond financialized real estate.

Past and future Rent & the City events include:

Rent & the City I: Regulation of Residential Rentals in European Cities

Rent and the City II: Who owns the city? Urban property regimes in and beyond financialized real estate

Rent and the City III: The Human Right to Housing - Global and Local Struggles

Meat the Law is a series of events focused around sustainability in the meat industry. Important challenges in this industry remain: livestock is the single biggest contributor to global food emissions. At the same time, disruptive technologies have sought to further sustainability in the field. For example, various mock meats that have gained traction as good investments for the inevitable sustainability-focused future – Beyond Meat stock surged 119% in the last year. The series is intended to enable engagement with diverse viewpoints from within and outside the domain of private law as a holistic approach to understanding the solutions and problems of the 21st century challenges: befitting for the overarching goal of the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative private law.

Past Meat the Law events include:

Meat the Law I: Kick off event

Meat the Law II: Finance and the meat industry

Meat the Law III: 'Plant-based' Accurate Information and Sustainable Lifestyles

Meat the Law IV: Labour in the Meat Industry: a Transnational Conversation

Meat the Law V: Subcontracted racial capitalism, organising and resistance in the meat industry: experiences from Italy and Spain

We identify 7 core themes of Transformative Private Law: Sustainability, Digitalization, Social Justice, Finance, Labour, Property, and Theory. In selecting these themes we recognize and aim to reflect that private law already plays a transformative role, yet also offers further transformative potential. Uncovering these dynamics, the Transformative Private Law Blog aims to open up discussions about these key themes in the field of private law and its transformation.

Scholars United for a Sustainable Amsterdam (SUSA) is a collective of academics who aim to work together with Amsterdam citizens, businesses and institutions to explore how Amsterdam can be made more sustainable.