Editorial

• Published date: 01 November 2008
• Date: 01 November 2008
• Author: Imelda Maher
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2008.00444.x

Editorial

Imelda Maher*

A focus on new governance in the EU and in much of European scholarship risks

neglecting the role of the European Courts as central actors in the development of the

Union. Recent decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) remind us of the

significance of the courts in mediating the relationship between market and social

regulation and between negative and positive regulation, and have generated much

debate in the policy domain.1In this, the sixth special issue arising out of the Interna-

tional Workshop for Young Scholars (WISH)2the authors explore key aspects of the

contemporary role of the European courts, and especially the ECJ.3First, the interface

of law and governance is addressed by Giorgi and Triart, Mak and S¸tefan; second, the

developing relationship between the European courts and national courts is examined

(Giorgi and Triart and Obermaier). Third, the legal reasoning of the Court is analysed

by Leczykiewicz, Conway and S¸tefan from three different perspectives. Finally, the

Court qua institution is explored by Mak and McAuliffe.

Mak immediately alludes to the chronic issue of rising case loads for the Court and

the renewed quest for legitimacy in the light of the challenges that poses and which, in

* School of Law, Dublin European Institute, UCD, Dublin.

1C-341/05, Laval un Partneri, 18 December 2007, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/

LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62005J0341:EN:HTML; C-438/05, Viking Line, 11 December 2007, available

at http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&submit=rechercher&numaff=c-438/05. For a

discussion of the media interest in the case see C. Woolfson and J. Sommers, ‘Labour Mobility in

Construction: European Implications of the Laval un Partneri Dispute with Swedish Labour’, (2006) 21(1)

European Journal of Industrial Relations 49, at 49–68.

2The workshop was held in November in UCD, Dublin. It was funded by the EC Commission (Jean

Monnet Programme), and organised by the European Law Journal, the School of Law, University College

Dublin, the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales et Communautaires (CERIC), Université

Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille III) Faculté de droit et de science politique, and the College of Europe,

Natolin. See http://www.ucd.ie/law/WISH.htm. Thanks is extended to all sponsors of the event.

3Institutional analysis of the European Courts has been largely but not exclusively dominated by American

political scientists see e.g. K. Alter, Establishing the Supremacy of European Law: The Making of an

International Rule of Law in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2001); G. Garrett, R. D. Kellemen and

H. Schulz, ‘The European Court of Justice National Governments and Legal Integration in the European

Union’, (1998) 52 International Organization 149–176; W. Mattlie and A. M. Slaughter, ‘Revisiting the

European Court of Justice’, (1998) 52 International Organization 177–209. Lawyers have also written on

the Court from an institutional perspective see e.g. D. Chalmers, ‘Judicial Preferences and the Community

Legal Order’, (1997) 60(2) MLR 164–199; G. de Búrca and J. H. H. Weiler (eds), The European Court of

Justice (Oxford University Press, 2001); R. Dehousse, The European Court of Justice: The Politics of

Judicial Integration (Macmillan, 1998); M. -P. Granger, ‘The Future of Europe: Judicial Interference and

Preferences’, (2005) 3(2) Comparative European Politics 155–179; M. P. Maduro, We the Court: The

European Court of Justice and the European Economic Constitution (Oxford University Press, 1998);

J. H. H. Weiler, ‘A Quiet Revolution: The European Court of Justice and Its Interlocutors’ (1994) 26(4)

Comparative Political Studies 510–534.

European Law Journal, Vol. 14, No. 6, November 2008, pp. 689–692.

© 2008 The Author

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