The ambiguous rhetoric of a legal system serving a neoliberal agenda: exploring the case of EU advertising law

This research will complement empirical research on the contradiction of the EU’s neoliberal project and its commitment to social values by philosophically analyzing the underlying value conflict in EU law between the neoliberal project on the one hand, and the core humanistic values of the EU on the other. This will be done by using as an example one branch of EU law in which those tensions are especially prominent, namely EU advertising law. This research will show first, that while the rhetoric of EU policies on advertising refers to central European values such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality and human rights, those policies support practices which in reality undermine these values. The question can be asked to what extent this contradiction is the consequence of a somewhat more ‘hidden’ neoliberal agenda. Second, it will be unveiled how a silent anthropology has been of crucial importance in constructing the previously discussed legitimizing value rhetoric of EU law in general, and advertising law in particular.