Collective Rights in Europe: A Comparative Study

This book examines collective rights, and collective or class action procedures, in the European Union and selected member states, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and others. Conceptually, collective rights and redistributive civil justice models conflict with principles of autonomy and fundamental individual rights in liberal legal orders. However, in interconnected modern society, breach of private rights and correlated public norms can inflict mass harm on numerous individuals and on the collective public interest. Constitutional civil, political and equality rights, minority rights, economic, social and cultural rights, and diffuse environmental rights, with individual and collective or solidarity dimensions, arise under European Union law and in various guises across national legal systems. Although EU law is a unifying trait, there is extensive diversity in the recognition and enforcement of collective or solidarity rights across member states. Breach of these rights has particular propensity to cause mass or collective harm. Enforcement can be challenging, but collective or class action procedures, whilst controversial, can facilitate access to justice. As this book reveals, despite European Union harmonization objectives, member states have hugely varying approaches to collective constitutional and private law rights and class or group action enforcement procedures.