The many ages of the Court of Justice of the European Union

Abstract

From its origins in the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, the Court of Justice of the European Union has developed into a legal leviathan, exercising a profound influence on the Union through its widely-studied case law. That case law has been lauded and criticised in equal measure. Some see it as bold and ingenious, while others consider it the product of a rogue court. Who were the individuals who made the early Court tick? What were the obstacles the Court had to overcome in order to achieve its current status? Why were the Member States slow to grasp the significance of the Court’s work? What is the relationship between the Court and the General Court, created by the Council in 1988 to alleviate the pressure imposed on the Court itself by its growing case load? This paper addresses these questions in their temporal, political and geopolitical context.