How does the Court of Justice of the European Union contribute to guarantee a high level of protection of public health when the latter is colliding with fundamental liberties? This is the subject of the PhD thesis I defended in October 2009. After a systematic analysis of the case law two ideas have become apparent: on the one hand, judges seek for maintaining the balance between the protection of public health and economic liberties. On the other hand, when non-commercial values collide with commercial values, judges are called to decide. They decide case by case whether priority is to be granted to the protection of human health over the free movement and competition rules (e.g. patient mobility, embargo on beef containing hormones, publicity for alcoholic beverages and tobacco, capital share in pharmacies).

    In the more specific field of biomedicine, our research covers patentability of human embryonic stem cells, medical data sharing as well as, more broadly, the legal definition of human well-being by judges in comparative law (research project financed from 2012 to 2014 by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, through the KZS fund).