BOOK: Matthias FRIEHE (ed.), Zur Verfassung der Europäischen Union [Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Rede zur Philosophie, Politik und Geistesgeschichte; 115] (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2026), 161 p., ISBN 978-3-428-19538-1

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Die Europäische Union ist in keiner leichten Verfassung: Unter dem Druck der russischen Aggression in der Ukraine brechen in vielen Mitgliedstaaten gesellschaftliche Konfliktlinien auf, während die Union im Bereich der Verteidigungspolitik ihre eigene Machtlosigkeit erfährt. Die Beiträge in diesem Tagungsband sind aus den Referaten entstanden, die auf der Sitzung der Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Sektion der Görres-Gesellschaft im September 2024 in Regensburg entstanden sind.

Die Beiträge unterstreichen trotz der genannten Herausforderungen die Stärke der europäischen Einigung und ihre Zukunftsperspektiven. Sie spannen einen weiten Bogen von der Konstitutionalisierung der Europäischen Union, auch vor dem Hintergrund der Souveränität der Mitgliedstaaten, über die Rechtsstaatsaufsicht, das europäische Wahl- und Parlamentsrecht bis hin zur Rolle des Europäischen Gerichtshofs. Beigetragen haben Franz Mayer, András Jakab, Monika Polzin, Winfried Kluth und Claus Dieter Classen.

TABLE OF CONTENT:

Franz C. Meyer
Konstitutionalisierung der Europäischen Union und Souveränität der Mitgliedstaaten

András Jakab
Rechtsstaatsaufsicht der Europäischen Union über ihre Mitgliedsstaaten: Was man über den Rechtsstaat wissen muss, damit wirksam gehandelt werden kann

Monika Polzin
Vorschläge für ein europäisches Wahlgesetz: Hintergründe, Perspektiven und Kritik

Winfried Kluth
Europäischer Parlamentarismus

Claus Dieter Classen.
Der Europäische Gerichtshof als überfordertes Multifunktionsgericht? Reformperspektiven zwischen europäischer Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit und einheitlicher Rechtsauslegung in der Union

Find more here.

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: Donal K. COFFEY on Brexit, union, and disunion: the evolution of British constitutional unsettlement by Sionaidh Douglas-Scott (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 362-366)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Brexit blew up the United Kingdom’s constitutional settlement. When the UK voted to leave the European Union, it threw into sharp relief a series of delicate constitutional arrangements that governed the relationship of the Government to Parliament through prorogation, the integration of direct democracy into a system ostensibly founded on representative democracy, the balance of power between Westminster and the devolved regions, the rights that citizens held in the UK – and that is merely to scratch the surface. In the current volume, Sionaidh Douglas-Scott takes the crisis offered by Brexit to provide an overview of the British constitutional settlement across a number of different axes. The monograph as a whole is an entertaining scholarly tour de force which demonstrates the application of a wide range of methodologies in a sophisticated fashion.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580105

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Borders of Europe. The Schengen System in a Historical Perspective (1990-2020) (Florence, 11-12 June 2020) (DEADLINE: 31 March 2020)

(Source: HSozkult)

Via Hsozkult, we learned of a call for papers for a conference on the Schengen System in a historical perspective.

“In 1985, a group of five member states of the European Community (EC), i.e. France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Benelux countries, signed an agreement in Schengen, whose aim was to remove internal border controls. It also provided for measures to strengthen external border controls and to ramp up the fight against drug trafficking, international crime and illegal immigration. This document, however, was more a working programme than a detailed plan of action and it was outside the community framework. After the Schengen Agreement had been signed, negotiations were therefore opened to decide upon a convention implementing it (CISA). The CISA, signed in 1990 in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, specified the measures, which were to compensate for the abolition of internal border controls; it also established the Schengen Information System, to support external border control and law enforcement cooperation in the Schengen states.” […]

More info here

BOOK: Johann P. ARNASON, ed., European Integration Historical Trajectories, Geopolitical Contexts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

(Source: OUP)

Edinburgh University Press is publishing a book dealing with historical aspects of European integration.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Explores the historical, geopolitical and conjunctural aspects of European integration, and their relevance to understanding the current crisis

To understand the current difficulties and future prospects of European integration, multiple perspectives are required. The essays in this collection explore historical and geopolitical aspects of European integration and their relevance to interpretations of the current climate. They also examine the different regional dynamics of integration and the attitudes that result from those experiences, including in the European peripheries that are so often overshadowed by the dominant centres. In drawing all of these perspectives together, the collection allows the reader to assess the EU's current crisis in context.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Johann P. Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Human Studies at Charles University, Prague. He taught sociology in Heidelberg and Bielefeld from 1972 to 1975, and at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, from 1975 to 2003. He has been a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and at the University of Leipzig, and a research fellow of the Alexander v. Humboldt-Stiftung, the Swedish Institute of Advanced Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (Essen), the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Göttingen and the Max-Weber-Kolleg in Erfurt. His research interests centre on social theory and historical sociology, with particular emphasis on the comparative analysis of civilizations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.Introduction: Perspectives on European Unity and Diversity

Johann P. Arnason

2. Europe as a Civilisation and the Hidden Structure of Modernity

Toby E. Huff

3. To Hell and Beyond: The European Civilisational Crisis of the Twentieth Century

Johann P. Arnason

4. The Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Crisis of Contemporary Europe

Helmut Kuzmics

5. Europe in Crisis: The History, the Players and the Stakes

Dennis Smith

6. Constitutionalism, Judicialisation and Human Rights in the Integration of European Society

Paul Blokker

7. Islam and the European Crisis: Reciprocal Discrimination and Co-Radicalisation

Natalie J. Doyle

8. Central and Eastern Europe: The New Core or the Periphery of Europe

Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski

9. Scandinavia Within and Without Europe

Bo Stråth

10. Conceit and Deceit in the European Union: Imaginaries of Europe and a Pan-Eurasian Alternative

Chris Hann

More info here

BOOK: Giuliano AMATO et al. eds., The History of the European Union : Constructing Utopia (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). ISBN 9781509917419, £120.00

(Source: Hart Publishing)

Hart Publishing is publishing a book on the history of the European Union.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The European Union celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2017, but celebrations were muted by Brexit and the growing sense of a crisis of identity. However, as this seminal work shows, the history and ambition of the European Union are considerable. Written by key stakeholders who, between them, acted as architects, adjudicators and arbitrators of the project, it presents the definitive history of the first two generations of the European Union.

This book revisits the birth and consolidation of the great project of a united Europe and the political, institutional, judicial and economical frameworks of the European Union: from the process towards integration, to the advancements and the impasses in building a political union.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Giuliano Amato is a Judge at the Italian Constitutional Court.

Enzo Moavero-Milanesi is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Italian Republic.

Gianfranco Pasquino is Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna and Senior Adjunct Professor, Hopkins SAIS-Europe as well as a Fellow at Accademia dei Lincei.

Lucrezia Reichlin is Professor at London Business School.

More information here

SSRN PAPER: Matthias GOLDMANN, European Integration in the History of International Law [Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2018-26]

(image source: scholarlykitchen)

Abstract:

This paper argues that the Treaties of Rome and the process of European integration they heralded had a lasting impact on the development of international law. However, their significance is usually misattributed. While European law has had little impact on international legal doctrine, and while European integration has remained unique as a political project, European law and the process of European integration have served international law as an important progress narrative. In this respect, they have had an influence on important background understandings characterizing international law since the postwar era, including on the perception of international law as universal, autonomous, pluralistic, and economically liberal. The progress narrative culminates in the view that international law is in a normatively ambitious process of constitutionalization, an idea imported from European law. This progress narrative is now under threat as European integration faces existential difficulties.The crisis of European integration might therefore anticipate a crisis of international law.

Read the full paper on SSRN.
(Source: ESILHIL Blog)

BOOK: Oliver Jürgen Junge, Imperium - Die Rechtsnatur der Europäischen Union im Vergleich mit imperialen Ordnungen vom Römischen bis zum Britischen Reich (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018). ISBN 978-3-16-156280-8, 105,00 €

(Source: Mohr Siebeck)

Mohr Siebeck is publishing a book which compares the legal nature of the EU with means of state ordering from the Romans up until the British Empire

ABOUT THE BOOK

Die Europäische Union gilt in der staats- und völkerrechtlichen Forschung weder als Staatenbund noch als Bundesstaat, sondern als historisch einzigartige und unvergleichbare Ordnung »sui generis«. Mit Blick auf die Geschichte imperialer Ordnungen ist der Diskurs über das Wesen der Europäischen Union aber stets unvollständig geblieben, obwohl diese wesentliche gemeinsame Merkmale haben. Dazu gehören neben ihrer Supranationalität und der Ausübung von Macht über andere Staaten die Ausdehnung und Entgrenzung ihrer Ordnung, ihr Universalismus und ihre innere kulturelle Vielfalt sowie die damit einhergehenden Differenzierungen der Verfassungen, Verträge und Rechtsordnungen zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie. Der vergleichende Blick auf das Römische und Britische Reich, daneben auch das Heilige Römische Reich und andere imperiale Gebilde offenbart mitunter erstaunlich aktuelle Parallelen zum Prozess der Europäischen Integration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Oliver Jürgen Junge Geboren 1980; Studium der Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Universität Bayreuth; 2006 Erste juristische Staatsprüfung; 2009 Zweite juristische Staatsprüfung; wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Lehrstuhl für Öffentliches Recht, Europarecht, Vergleichende Staatslehre und Verfassungsgeschichte an der Universität Konstanz; seit 2013 Rechtsanwalt in Stuttgart.

More information here

BOOK: Vera FRITZ, Juges et avocats généraux de la Cour de Justice de l’Union Européenne (1952-1972) : une approche biographique de l’histoire d’une révolution juridique [Studien zur europäischen rechtsgeschichte 312] (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann Verlag, 2018), ISBN 978-3-465-04350-8, €79.00

(Source: Vittorio Klostermann)

Vittorio Klostermann Verlag has published a new book on the professional and personal backgrounds of the first judges and advocates general of the CJEU.

ABOUT THE BOOK

En s’appuyant sur des archives rassemblées dans les six pays fondateurs de l’Union européenne, cet ouvrage propose un regard nouveau sur le "processus de constitutionnalisation" des traités européens lancé dans les années 1960 par la Cour de Justice de l’UE. En mettant en lumière les parcours professionnels et personnels des premiers juges et avocats généraux européens, il étudie les dynamiques qui règnent à l’intérieur de l’institution pendant ses années "révolutionnaires" et s’intéresse aux relations que la juridiction entretient avec les Etats membres. À travers une étude détaillée du processus de sélection des membres de la Cour, il apporte notamment des réponses inédites à la question de savoir si les gouvernements ont tenté de mettre un terme à sa jurisprudence audacieuse.

Drawing on archives gathered in the six founding member states of the European Union, this book offers a new perspective on the "constitutionalization" of the European treaties, which was launched in the 1960s by the Court of Justice of the EU. By highlighting the professional and personal backgrounds of the first European judges and advocates general, its author studies the dynamics which prevailed within the institution during its "revolutionary" years and analyzes the Court’s relationship with the Member States of the European Communities. Through a detailed study of the selection process of the members of the Court, it also provides new answers to the question of whether governments tried to put an end to its bold jurisprudence.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The table of contents can be found here

More information here

JOURNAL: Symposium on the History of EU Law (American University Law Review XXVIII (2013), Nr. 5)

The Legal History Blog signals an interesting issue of the American University Law Review, featuring a symposium on the history of EU law and its status as a new sub-discipline of both general and legal history.

Table of contents:
Critical Legal Histories in EU Law
Fernanda G. Nicola

Rewriting the History of European Public Law: The New Contribution of Historians
Morten Rasmussen

Toward a New History in European Law: New Wine in Old Bottles?
Michelle Egan

The New EU Legal History: What's New, What's Missing?
Mark A. Pollack

Rethinking the Legal Foundations of the European Constitutional Order: The Lessons of the New Historical Research
Francesca Bignami

Why EU Legal History Matters--A Historian's Response
Bill Davies

(source: Legal History blog)

BOOK: Towards a European Legal Culture

Geneviève Helleringer and Kai Purnhagen, Towards a European Legal Culture, Hart Publishing: Oxford, 2013. 

Presentation by the editor:

European harmonisation efforts such as a European civil code, European constitutional treaties, European principles, and European fundamental rights are frequently criticised for building on or creating a European legal culture that does not exist; in reality what we have is European legal pluralism. Some have argued that the pluralistic structure of European law hinders the development of a community, which is a necessary requirement for a European legal culture. And if there can be no common European legal culture then there is no basis for harmonising exercises. 

The contributors to this book explore in different legal areas whether in fact the contrary is true. Cultural pluralism might indeed be a distinctive feature of European legal culture. Diversity is not something that is in opposition to, but rather constitutes a new, different understanding of European legal culture. The contributions demonstrate in detail how such an approach inter alia in the areas of private, corporate, administrative and constitutional law furthers understanding of a developing European legal culture, how it offers theoretical and doctrinal insights, and how it adds critical perspective. 

More information HERE. 

PUBLICATION: Bill Davies on the 'reception' of European law and court decisions in Germany

Bill Davies, Resisting the ECJ: Germany’s Confrontation with European Law, 1949-1979, Cambridge University Press, July 2012

The European Union's (EU) powerful legal framework drives the process of European integration. The Court of Justice (ECJ) has established a uniquely effective supranational legal order, beyond the original wording of the Treaty of Rome and transforming our traditional understanding of international law. This work investigates how these fundamental transformations in the European legal system were received in one of the most important member states, Germany. On the one hand, Germany has been highly supportive of political and economic integration; yet on the other, a fundamental pillar of the post-war German identity was the integrity of its constitutional order. How did a state whose constitution was so essential to its self-understanding subscribe to the constitutional practice of EU law? How did a country who could not say 'no' to Europe become the member state most reluctant to accept the new power of the ECJ?

 

Source: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6796409/?site_locale=en_GB