On Tuesday, March 8th, 2022 from 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm we held a virtual panel featuring Rozen Noguellou, State Councillor in France’s Conseil d'État, and David Renders, Professor at the University of Louvain and Lawyer at the Bar of Brussels. Ms Noguellou and Mr Renders are co-authors of 2018’s Uber & Taxis: Comparative Law Studies.

The panel was moderated by Cornell’s Professor Sara Bronin and featured the panelists’ comparative studies regarding law and mobility in a European context.

About the panel:

David Renders – Catching a Ride in the European Capital

In Brussels, the emergence of UBER has been a source of confusion, both in law and in fact. As elsewhere, this new service arrived very suddenly. As a result, it seriously undermined the existing regulatory framework in Belgium’s capital, which until then had been designed to allow only cabs and luxury cabs. Outraged by the arrival of a competitor that, in its view, brazenly violated the law applicable in Brussels, the cab industry lobbied intensively and, at the same time, took legal action to prevent UBER from continuing to operate. In two rulings issued at the end of November 2021, the courts ruled in favor of the cabs, which led UBER to cease its activity for a few days. The political class immediately seized the issue to conclude, in a hurry, an agreement replacing the legal framework applicable until then in the Belgian and European capital with a new framework, but only temporarily. Which framework should apply? And why? Moreover, is the newly instituted framework really only temporary? Of all the urban mobility issues in Brussels, UBER is by far the hottest and most unfinished. It’s an example of the law trying to balance the weight of the past and the horizons of the future.

Rozen Noguellou – Regulating New Mobilities: the Parisian Case

Mobility has been profoundly transformed in Paris in the last decade. Environmental considerations were imposed to limit the use of cars, new transportation models emerged, and the law had to adapt. Since transportation is crucial to the development of cities, the way Paris is adapting to new mobilities raises the question of its future.

About Rozen Noguellou:

Rozen Noguellou has been a State Councillor since 2020. She previously was a Law Professor at the University Paris 1 - Pantheon Sorbonne (Sorbonne Law School), where she used to teach land use and planning law, public contracts law and regulation. She was appointed at the Council of State (France’s administrative supreme court) in 2020 where she mostly works on environmental and planning law cases.

She has published papers in various French law journals and taken part in collective works in France and abroad. She is the co-author of a textbook on Planning and Construction Law (2020, LGDJ), the co-author of a textbook on Public Property Law (2018, Dalloz) She also co-edited a book on "Comparative law on public contracts" (2010, Bruylant) and a book on “Uber and taxis, a comparative law study” (2018, Bruylant).

She teaches or takes part in conferences in various universities throughout the world.

About David Renders:

David Renders is a Lawyer at the Bar of Brussels and full professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain School of Law where he is currently Vice Dean and Director of the Centre Montesquieu d’études de l’action publique. He is the author or the co-author of over two hundred and fifty books and contributions. He teaches General Administrative Law, Administrative Litigation, Public Policy Law, and Administrative Law related to the European Integration. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University, a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Bordeaux, Brescia, Fukuoka, Limoges, Paris I-Pantheon Sorbonne, Sao Paolo and Södertörn, a Lecturer in various other locations both in Europe and the United States, Secretary-General of the International Association for Urban Planning Law, and a Trainee at the General Court of the European Union. He also has been consulted as an expert by Belgian federal and federated Parliaments and Government Members. Mr. Renders serves on several editorial boards of Belgian and French scientific journals, has been a member of numerous examination boards including that of the Auditors for the Belgian Council of State and that of the University Institute of France, and was called to serve on several Belgian Public Institutions.

About Sara Bronin:

Sara Bronin is a Professor at the Cornell School of Art, Architecture, and Planning, an Associate Member of the Cornell Law School Faculty, and a Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.

In addition to her books and treatises on land use and historic preservation law, she has written over two dozen articles on renewable energy, climate change, housing, urban planning, transportation, real estate development, and federalism. She also serves as the lead author of the land use volume of the forthcoming Restatement (Fourth) of Property. Among other current projects, Bronin leads the research team behind the Connecticut Zoning Atlas, the first interactive GIS map of all of the zoning regulations in a single state. Her book, Key to the City, under contract with W.W. Norton Press, will explore how zoning shapes our lives.