This chapter considers the circumstances when EU law provisions can be invoked in national courts. The doctrine of direct effect enables an EU law provision to be invoked in a national court when it grants entitlements to individual parties in a sufficiently precise way. Directly effective provisions of the EU Treaties and Regulations can be invoked against both the State and private actors. By contrast, directly effective provisions of Directives can only be invoked against the State. The doctrine of indirect effects requires any national law or procedure to be interpreted so far as possible to comply with all EU law. However, this cannot be done if the interpretation would contradict the wording of the national law or aggravate criminal liability. The doctrine of State liability allows individuals to sue the State for damages for breach of an EU law which grants them individual rights in a number of circumstances: if the State has failed to transpose a Directive, it has not complied with an order of the Court of Justice, it has failed to follow settled case law of that court or it breaches a clear provision of EU law.

Is there any point in a body of law providing rights that cannot be accessed by individuals? If a prohibition needs a procedure to make it effective in practice, this was the job for which direct effect was originally introduced. This chapter will consider the application of direct effect to primary and secondary Union law. It will only explore binding EU law – it was clearly stated in Grimaldi that recommendations and opinions could not have direct effect as they are not binding. This prevented Mr Grimaldi from relying upon two Commission recommendations which dealt with occupational diseases. Although the recommendations recognised his particular malady, the Belgian Occupational Diseases Fund did not, with the consequence that he was unable to receive compensation. The recommendations were deemed to be clear, unconditional and precise, but it is clear from the wording in Article 288 TFEU that these are not binding. The CJ therefore decided that the recommendations did not create rights upon which individuals may rely before a national court.

Mediation analysis has been called \harder than it looks" (Bullock and Ha 2011) due to difficulties of experimental identification. However, recent work has clarified that, while hard, some experimental designs for mediation can be informative. Other recent work has provided “easier” substitutes for mediation analysis. This chapter has two goals. First, to summarize some of the findings published since Bullock and Ha (2011) and to consider the implications these findings have for mediation analysis. Second, to consider the situations in which a close alternative to mediation analysis would be useful (either as a supplement or a substitute). Such situations often depend on the motivation for the analysis.