This book retells the multiple stories behind the rulings of the European Court, revealing their context, their history and the legal and non-legal strategies of their actors.

All legal texts tell us stories in many ways. What stories, what narratives, can be found in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union? This book invites the reader to think of the world of EU law as a creative process. From such a perspective, the adjudicative praxis of the Court is an intellectual, cultural, literary activity, in which the reader can imagine him- or herself participating. The author develops a novel hermeneutic methodology to examine the textual performance of the Court, by combining the work of American 'Law and Literature' scholar James Boyd White with the work of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. This methodology allows for an analysis of the role played by the Court in its legal reasoning and the vision of humanity it demonstrates: narratives of 'self' and 'other.' The synthesis of two case studies (on economically inactive EU citizens' access to social benefits, and on data protection and privacy) results in an open-ended and self-reflective examination of the narratives about human agency and human responsibility in the case law of the Court of Justice European Union.

This book revisits, in a new light, some of the classic cases which constitute the foundations of the EU legal order and is timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty establishing a European Economic Community. Its broader purpose, however, is to discuss the future of the EU legal order by examining, from a variety of different perspectives, the most important judgments of the ECJ which established the foundations of the EU legal order. The tone is neither necessarily celebratory nor critical, but relies on the viewpoint of the distinguished line-up of contributors - drawn from among former and current members of the Court (the view from within), scholars from other disciplines or lawyers from other legal orders (the view from outside), and two different generations of EU legal scholars (the classics revisit the classics and a view from the future). Each of these groups will provide a different perspective on the same set of selected judgments. In each short essay, questions such as 'what would have EU law been without this judgment of the Court? what factors might have influenced it?; did the judgment create expectations which were not fully fulfilled?' and so on, are posed and answered. The result is a profound, wide-ranging and fresh examination of the 'founding cases' of EU law.

This Casebook deals with the horizontal effects of EU law, which is to say its effects on relationships between individuals. To a large extent, these effects have been created by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the basis of the European Treaties. The main focus of the Casebook is on the developments relating to primary EU law and their influence on national private law. It studies instances where EU primary law has already directly or indirectly influenced the case law in the Member States, or where it is expected to do so soon. Compared to the well-known impact of EU directives on private law, these developments concerning primary EU law are hardly noted by private lawyers and perhaps not sufficiently explained by scholars of EU law. Therefore the book makes an important contribution to scholarship and education. This book highlights developments in the areas of competition law, fundamental freedoms, non-discrimination, general principles of EU law, ex officio application of provisions of EU law and implementation of directives, including harmonious interpretation and Francovich liability. In its analysis of the ways in which EU law interacts with private law, the book will be an invaluable resource to students, practitioners and academics of EU private law.

The book takes stock of the on-going 'methodological turn' in the field of EU law scholarship. Introducing a new generation of scholars of the European Court of Justice from law, history, sociology, political science and linguistics, it provides a set of novel interdisciplinary research strategies and empirical materials for the study of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The twelve case studies included challenge the usual top-down approach to EU law and the CJEU and instead suggest a more localized and fine-grained observation of the socio-legal actors and practices involved in the making of CJEU case-law. Moving beyond mainstream legal scholarship and the established 'grand narratives' of legal integration, the volume provides a more historically-informed and sociologically-grounded account of the EU law's uneven embeddedness in Europe's economies and societies.

The fifth edition of EU Law: Text, Cases, and Materials provides clear and insightful analysis of European Law accompanied by carefully chosen extracts from a range of materials. This edition looks in detail at the way in which the Treaty of Lisbon has radically changed both the institutional and substantive law of the European Union.

This classic casebook provides a valuable selection of significant cases and legislation alongside an engaging range of carefully selected extracts, all of which are enhanced by insightful author notes in an easy-to-use and accessible format.

The European Union has undergone major changes in the last decade, including Treaty reform, and a significant expansion of activity in foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs. In the first edition of this influential textbook, a team of leading lawyers and political scientists reflected upon the important developments in their chosen area over the time since the EC was formed. This new edition continues this analysis ten years on. Taking into account the social and political background, and without losing sight of the changes that came before, in each chapter the contributors analyze the principle themes and assess the legal and political forces that have shaped its development. Each author addresses a specific topic, event, or theme, from the European Court of Justice to Treaty reform; the enlargement of the EU to administrative law; the effect of EU law on culture to climate change. Together the chapters tell the story of the rapid development of EU law - its past, present, and future.