This incisive book evaluates the legal effects of soft law, its foundations and how they behave in some of the most innovative areas of EU law. Combining theory, language and sectoral insights, this comprehensive review uses case studies to shed new light on the three core areas of soft law. The book opens with an exploration of the meaning and scope of EU soft law’s legal effects from a theoretical and doctrinal perspective. Chapters analyse the role, contribution and broader legal effectiveness of the language employed by EU authorities when drafting soft law instruments. Finally, in a ground-up approach to the research topic, the book discusses soft law’s legal effects within three areas of EU legislation, namely financial supervision, technical standardisation and telecommunications law. Advancing a legal and argumentative toolkit to evaluate and improve EU soft law’s persuasiveness, this title will be advantageous to academics, practitioners and policy-makers with specialisations in European law, constitutional and administrative law and regulation and governance.

One of the promises of Brexit was to allow the UK to regain its legislative sovereignty from the EU. However, after Brexit, UK data protection law must remain in line with EU standards in order not to lose the adequacy status that allows personal data to be transferred from the EU. This circumstance generates tensions between the EU, which is committed to preserving its digital sovereignty by ensuring an adequate protection of personal data even beyond its borders, and the UK’s ambition to become a champion of the digital economy by adopting an innovative and pro-business legislation in the digital field. The book analyses the latest legal and policy developments in this context, focusing on data protection but also exploring its intersection with other related regulatory areas, such as artificial intelligence and online safety. Renowned international experts contextualise current regulatory trends and policy proposals to understand whether a new UK model in the field of digital regulation is emerging and to what extent this will exacerbate existing tensions between the UK and the EU. The book includes an accessible and detailed analysis of the major judicial decisions, laws, and current bills offering an invaluable guide to academics, practitioners, and policymakers navigating the complex issues of cross-border data protection post-Brexit.