Suchergebnisse

1. Introductory chapter -- 2. Theoretical perspectives on law and the law of the European Union -- 3. Institutional perspectives on the legal order of the European Union -- 4. The Court of Justice -- 5. The values of the European Union legal order : constitutional perspectives -- 6. Union or member state Kompetenz Kompetenz : constitutional questions in the relationship between Union and domestic orders -- 7. European Union law as international law -- 8. Concluding chapter.

"Positivist and non-positivist theoretical accounts of the concept or practice of law have debated the role played by values as possible features of legal ordering or possible conditions of legality. These debates concern whether law is properly understood as a descriptively accessible social fact, or is linked to a discursively accessible realm of 'abstract' normativity. Such debates arguably fail to fully account for the sense in which values operate within the legal order of the European Union, an order which is based upon the realisation of a complex objective, that of European integration. This legal order illustrates that, providing the moral concerns associated with 'rule of law' legal orders are maintained, additional values relating to the achievement of a co-operative political, social or economic enterprise can operate as fundamental or higher legal standards.The book considers the values underlying legal ordering by reference to the law of the European Union and as expressed through the practices of the European Court of Justice. The book examines the relationship between Union and Member State legal orders and the institutional practices of the Court of Justice in giving effect to the values associated with the Union legal order. The conditioning of Union legal demands to take in institutional context is contrasted with the potential legal authority arising under the Treaties as a matter of international law. The book combines diverse theoretical insights regarding law along with analysis of case judgments of the Court of Justice in order to show how the EU legal order is indicative of a broader understanding of the role of values within legal orders than that portrayed in current theoretical accounts"--

International law principles enable a rationalisation of the values to which the Union order aspires as a collective political and legal commitment amongst the Member States. The doctrine of Union law supremacy, which parallels that of international law supremacy, emphasises the overriding character of Union legal demands as a set of values and objectives over those of purely domestic origin. A common view that the Union legal order is sui generis or municipal in character fails to explain the directing character of the values underlying the Union project including its legal order. In this article I therefore explore and defend the view that the Union legal order is essentially one of international law. A central contention in this regard is that the supremacy of Union law obligations within the Member States is based on the principle of the supremacy of international law obligations over those originating in the domestic arena. The intensive rationalisation of this principle by the Court of Justice within its case law manages the intrusive domestic legal effects of the values and ideals found in the Union Treaties and illustrates the evolutionary character of the Union project.