EU Law Stories: Contextual and Critical Histories of European Jurisprudence

Description

Through an interdisciplinary analysis of the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union, this book offers 'thick' descriptions, contextual histories and critical narratives engaging with leading or minor personalities involved behind the scenes of each case. The contributions depart from the notion that EU law and its history should be narrated in a linear and incremental way to show instead that law evolves in a contingent and not determinate manner. The book shows that the effects of judge-made law remain relatively indeterminate and each case can be retold through different contextual narratives, and shows the commitment of the European legal elites to the experience of legal reasoning. The idea to cluster the stories around prominent cases is not to be fully comprehensive, but to re-focus the scholarship and teaching of EU law by moving beyond the black letter and unravel the lawyering techniques to achieve policy results.

Fernanda Nicola is Professor of Law and Director of the Program on International Organizations Law and Diplomacy at Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC. She is a member of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) and Chair of the Prize Committee for the ASCL. Bill Davies is Associate Professor of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University, Washington DC. He is the author of Resisting the European Court of Justice (Cambridge, 2012).