Cases and Materials on European Union Law

Cases and Materials on European Union Law

Description

The study of European Union (or EU) law has steadily gained importance in recent years. The EU today consists of twenty-seven Member States with a complex institutional and constitutional structure. This casebook is intended to provide a basic understanding of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Community, including their structures, goals, fields of action, achievements and aspirations, providing a foundation for further research, analysis and legal writing. There are many valid reasons to study European Union law. We present here three of the most important ones. The most pragmatic of them is that the EU has become the largest trading partner of the US, represents a major site of investment for US firms and is the principal site of overseas offices of American law firms. Indeed, its total Gross Domestic Product has recently surpassed that of the US. US law firms and international house counsel cannot afford to possess only a limited knowledge of Union structure, law-making processes and substantive law. European Union competition and trade law have long been staples of international practice. Today the EU’s harmonization of health, safety and technical standards, company, banking and securities law, environmental and consumer protection measures, and legislation in the field of employment law (to name just a sampling of sectors) represent matters of practical concern to American enterprises and their lawyers. The Economic and Monetary Union, with a single currency and a single monetary policy for a majority of the EU States, is also of evident importance to the international business and legal world. Second, European Union law is a rewarding field for comparative law study. This has long been true in competition and trade law, where academics and practitioners have found provocative points of comparison and contrast. A rich source of comparative study is also to be found in the EU programs for harmonization of laws. In some fields, as in environmental and consumer rights law, the EU has been significantly influenced by US models, but still strikes certain different notes. In other fields, such as banking, company law, employment law, and anti-discrimination law, the EU has taken quite a different path from the US. Constitutional comparisons and contrasts between the US and EU enrich legal analysis on both sides of the Atlantic. Third, European Union law provides a laboratory for study of law formation: the development of an entire legal system in modern times. The study includes evolving constitutional framework, its institutions, substantive legislations and judicial law, and the constant interplay of policy and politics in an evolving federal-type system, one comprised of twenty-seven nations having many common features, but also quite diverse legal and political systems, demographics and interests. Students who take a basic EU law course for any or all of these reasons will find the casebook of great value. The book covers virtually all major fields of European Union law (except for certain technical fields, such as agriculture, transport, energy and public procurement). The notes and questions are intended to facilitate reflection on how and why the EU institutions, and especially the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance (now renamed the General Court) have reached their legal and policy conclusions. The text and notes make frequent comparisons with US law. The authors hope that students will thereby achieve not only a solid comprehension of European Union law, but also one permitting critical evaluation. The casebook was written primarily for use in US law schools. It is suitable as well for law faculties in Europe and elsewhere. Our casebook follows traditional US teaching methods which give central attention to primary materials, notably the Treaty provisions, legislation and court judgments, inviting students to examine these materials critically through focused questions. Accordingly, Court judgments and EU legislation are subjected to the same kind of analytic review as US laws and Supreme Court opinions would be in a standard constitutional law casebook. We hope that European professors and students will find that the process of analytic examination of judgements and legislation through questions will assist in a more reflective comprehension of EU rules and judicial doctrines. The entry into force on Dec. 1, 2009 of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union (TEU) and its accessory Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which replaces the prior European Community Treaty (ECT), complicates to some extent current study of EU law. The Lisbon TEU’s provisions include many innovations as compared to the prior Maastricht Treaty on European Union, in effect from Nov. 1, 1993. We have tried always to make clear to which TEU we are referring when discussing provisions in the casebook text. Moreover, although many TFEU articles only reiterate provisions of the ECT, some have significantly changed and all have been renumbered. We have customarily indicated the corresponding provisions of both the ECT and TFEU in the casebook text and the excerpted judgments. Over time the Lisbon TEU and TFEU provisions will become familiar, but currently some confusion is inevitable. The Selected Documents, which accompanies the casebook, should prove quite helpful in this regard. It contains the Lisbon TEU, TFEU and the ECT (as most recently amended by the Treaty of Nice, effective Feb. 1, 2003), as well as a conversion table of article numbers between the TFEU and ECT. The Selected Documents also include the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, given Treaty legal force by the TEU, certain key Protocols, and a considerable number of secondary legislative measures that are important to the understanding of relevant casebook text. The accessibility of these documents should be helpful in research and writing. Clearly there is more material in this casebook than can be responsibly covered in a single semester course. There is a range of possibilities. Teachers who wish especially to emphasize constitutional and institutional issues will find that Parts I and II of the book provide a comprehensive picture of the legal and institutional framework of the European Union, furnished material for at least a full half-semester of teaching, thereby allowing the constitutional and institutional themes to become the course’s leitmotif. They may then assign substantive law chapters that best match their own and their students’ interests. We recommend that nay such substantive law selection include a very healthy dose of the material in Part III on the internal Market, one or two basic chapters on competition policy (from Part IV), and one or two basic chapters on external relations and trade (from Part V) or economic and monetary union and free movement of capital (from Part VI). Other teachers may wish to concentrate in a course or seminar on certain substantive aspects of Union law. Thus a course might concentrate on the common market, or internal market, in Part III, perhaps with the addition of Part VI on free movement of capital and the Economic and Monetary Union, and some chapters from Part VII. Another likely course is one centered on competition law, the topic of Part IV, perhaps joined with coverage of external relations and trade law, the subject of Part V. Any of the assorted substantive law topics in Part VII—environmental protection, consumer rights, social policy, equal employment rights and jurisdiction and judgments—might appropriately be covered either in a basic course or advanced seminar. We hope that the casebook will prove easy to use while also highly instructive, and that it will stimulate further study and scholarship in the ever-widening fields of European Union law.

Publication Date

2011

Edition

3

Cases and Materials on European Union Law

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