Douglas Arner et al on Datafying sustainable finance: Efficiency and impact by design (European Law Journal)

"Datafying sustainable finance: Efficiency and impact by design"
Dirk A. Zetzsche, Marian Unterstell, Ross P. Buckley, Douglas W. Arner
European Law Journal, Volume 31, Issue 3, pp. 203-226
Published online: November 2025

Abstract: The ongoing implementation of the EU's Sustainable Finance Strategy has led to a significant development of EU law to finance and facilitate the transition of the real economy towards sustainability. We argue first that this strategy, at its core, is a data strategy, requiring the datafication of the entire European financial, production and services sectors. The ongoing process of datafication will extend to data concerning externalities previously not incorporated into quantitative financial models and analysis. Second, we look at other datafication processes in finance to identify regulatory lessons for the EU's Sustainable Finance Framework in light of the European Commission's Simplification and Burden Reduction agenda in finance. We recommend the implementation of digital reporting standards developed in tandem by industry and regulators; the utilisation of Green RegTech and SupTech, centralised and enabled via digital reporting infrastructure; and the facilitation of the use of official estimates to both ensure proportionality and reduce the regulatory burden of reporting entities, with a focus on small and medium enterprises.

Alec Stone Sweet et al on Dissenting Opinions and Rights Protection in the European Court (EJIL)

"Dissenting Opinions and Rights Protection in the European Court: A Reply to Laurence Helfer and Erik Voeten"
Alec Stone Sweet, Wayne Sandholtz, and Mads Andenas

European Journal of International Law, 

Volume 32, Issue 3, August 2021,

pp. 897–906, https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chab057
Published on 22 November 2021

Abstract: In their article ‘Walking Back Human Rights in Europe?’, Helfer and Voeten (hereinafter ‘H-V’) argue that a series of High Level Conferences (2012–2018), specifically Brighton (2012), dramatically altered the style of the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) decision-making. The Grand Chamber began to adopt judgments which, in turn, provoked an unprecedented wave of ‘Walking-Back Dissents’. Such dissents are separate opinions that, in effect, accuse the majority of a Grand Chamber of ‘tacitly overturn[ing] prior rulings or settled doctrine in favour of national governments’ (H-V, p. 823). In an expansive conclusion, H-V suggest that the ECtHR has also generated a rising number of ‘Walking-Back Judgments’, which lower standards of rights protection. We reject H-V’s major claims on the empirical evidence. The outcomes of Brighton and subsequent conferences did not pose a credible threat to the Court, and could not have induced it to ‘walk back’ rights protection. We also closely examined two sets of Walking-Back Dissents identified by H-V, focusing on judgments that would be ‘most likely to fit’ H-V’s ‘expectations’. We found that fewer than one in four judgments analysed actually contained a Walking-Back Dissent. And we identified only one plausible Walking-Back Judgment. We are confident that H-V’s results are inaccurate and cannot be reproduced by external analysts. We conclude by noting factors that H-V do not consider, but that are crucial to understanding the ECtHR’s decision-making. In appendices, posted online, we summarize and give reasons for our coding decisions.