The European Court of Justice

Abstract

This collection of essays aims to look afresh at an institution which, although already the subject of numerous academic analyses and extensive legal research, remains of central importance to all who are interested in the development of European Union law and policy. Various contributions seek to develop particular avenues of analysis which, despite the significant increase in the range and volume of literature on the Court of Justice, have not yet been very fully explored. They include a legal-philosophical account of the ECJ's reasoning, a sociological analysis of patterns of litigation before the Court, and an investigation of the impact and presence of gender in the Court's work and on its institutional position. Other contributions look anew at the more topical and sometimes controversial subject of the relationship between national courts and the Court of Justice, both under the preliminary reference procedure and in other contexts, and a final essay considers the likely effect on the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance of the reforms to the judicial structure proposed during the Nice Intergovernmental Conference.