Professor Estelle Derclaye's new monograph was launched in Brussels

On 18 September 2025, the JurisLab (Centre for Private Law / Fab Lab ULB) of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Commercial Law Centre of the University of Nottingham (UNCLC) jointly launched Estelle Derclaye & Gilles Stupfler’s book,  EU Copyright Law Harmonisation, An Empirical Analysis of National Courts Case Law, Hart/Bloomsbury, September 2025.

The event took place at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and featured three commentators discussing the book, Tamas Szigeti (Lawyer at Wiggin and formerly at the DG Connect), Frédéric Blockx (Vice-President of the Enterprise Court of Antwerp) and Julien Cabay (Professor at the Faculty of Law and Director of JurisLab, ULB). An interesting Q&A session from the audience followed among others discussing the availability of court decisions in the different Member States. The event attracted students, academics, policymakers and practising lawyers. The event was followed by a drinks and canapés reception.

 As per the publisher’s website, this book provides the first comprehensive comparative and empirical analysis of the state of harmonisation in EU copyright law in the 27 Member States, and the UK, at the level of national courts. In the book, Prof. Derclaye and Prof. Stupfler analyse some of the most recent decisions on EU copyright law issued by the 27 Member States and the UK (pre- and post-Brexit), using doctrinal and quantitative methodologies. The main research question addressed is whether there is disharmony in the national case law and whether this is owed to Members States' misimplementing EU copyright legislation, lack of clarity of EU legislation and/or case law, or national courts being unaware, misinterpreting or resisting CJEU case law. The book provides detailed legal analyses and descriptive statistics per topic, per type of work, per country, across countries and over time supported by statistical analysis. Its findings and in-depth reflections on the law and how to improve it are of crucial relevance for policymakers and the judiciary at EU and national level and will interest scholarly audiences in the UK, EU, EEA and beyond.

The authors thank ULB and UNCLC for organising and sponsoring this event.