Guide to basic research on European Union law in Tarlton Law Library
Printable version
Prepared by , Foreign & International Law Librarian
I. Overview
The Law Library is an official depository of publications from the EU. Many of these publications are legal or law-related. Also, the Law Library has built a major collection of materials about EU law from many other publishers.
General areas of the Law Library where publications from the EU or about EU law will be found are:
- JX 1982 (stack 628) – JX 1984 (stack 630)
- KJE 916 (stack 653) – KJE 7975 (stack 654)
Excellent recent introductory texts on EU law and institutions are:
- Anthony Arnull, et al.,Wyatt and Dashwood’s European Union Law (5th ed. 2006) KJE 947 W96 2006
- Paul Craig & Gráinne de Búrca, EU Law: Text, Cases, and Materials (3d ed. 2003) KJE 947 C73 2003
- Trevor C. Hartley, The Foundations of European Community Law: An Introduction to the Constitutional and Administrative Law of the European Community (5th ed. 2003) KJE 947 H37 2003
- K.P.E. Lasok & D. Lasok, Law and Institutions of the European Union (7th ed. 2001) KJE 947 L37 2001
- P.S.R.F. Mathijsen, A Guide to European Union Law (9th ed. 2007) KJE 947 M38 2007
- Stephen Weatherill & Paul Beaumont, EU Law (3d ed. 1999) KJE 947 W43 1999
Journals devoted to EU law in the Law Library are:
- Columbia Journal of European Law, v.1 (1994/95-) K 3 O3525
- Common Market Law Review, v.1 (1963/64-) JX 1982 A1 C65
- European Law Journal, v.1 (1995-) K 5 U7864
- European Law Review, v.1 (1975/76-) K 5 U7865
- European Public Law, v.1 (1995-) K 5 U787
- Journal of Common Market Studies, v.1 (1962-) HC 241.2 J68
- Maastricht Journal of European & Comparative Law, v.1 (1994-) K 13 A27
Two excellent overview sources published by the EU for keeping track of developments in the EU are:
II. EU law on the web
EUR-Lex
EUR-Lex is the official "access to European Union law" sponsored by the European Commission. It contains a vast amount of EU legal information of all kinds and has excellent search capability. EUR-
Lex is available free to anyone with access to the Web. Some of the more significant components of EUR-
Lex are summarized below.
- Treaties - A comprehensive collection of EU treaties, including the founding treaties, consolidated versions of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty of Nice, and the accession treaties.
- Official Journal - Electronic versions of the Official Journal, current to the day, and with an archive going back to January 1998.
- Legislation - A comprehensive collection of all EU legislation currently in force.
- Legislation in preparation - A comprehensive collection of proposals for legislation made by the European Commission.
Europa
Europa is "The European Union On-Line." It is the official Web portal, sponsored by the European Commission, to EU information of all kinds. Europa has a good search capability. Some of Europa's more significant elements are:
- Under "Institutions" links to the websites of all the EU institutions. Note that each EU institution has its own website containing large amounts of information. (See below for more information.)
- Under "Activities" overviews of EU action in over 30 fields.
- Under "Documents" links to documents of all the institutions.
- Under "The EU Day by Day" links to press releases and to the press services of all the EU institutions.
III. The EU institutions (with their websites)
The main European Union institutions are:
Two other EU institutions with mainly consultative status are:
Other significant EU institutions are:
Web links to 15 specialized agencies of the EU are found at europa.eu.int/agencies/index_en.htm
IV. Primary EU law and where to find it
Founding and amending treaties - These are the treaties among the member states that establish the EU and contain the foundations of EU law. The main treaties with preferred sources for citation are the following. As noted above, a comprehensive collection of the treaties is available on EUR-Lex.
- Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) (often referred to as the E.C.S.C. Treaty), 261 U.N.T.S. 140
- Treaty Establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (1957) (often referred to as the Euratom Treaty), 298 U.N.T.S. 167
- Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (1957) (often referred to as the Treaty of Rome or the E.E.C. Treaty), 298 U.N.T.S. 11
- Treaty Establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities (1965) (often referred to as the Merger Treaty), 1965 J.O. (152) 1, 4 I.L.M. 776
- Single European Act (1986), 1987 O.J. (L 169) 1, 25 I.L.M. 503
- Treaty Establishing the European Community (1992) (often referred to as the EC Treaty) (consolidated version), 2006 O.J. (C 321) E/37
- Treaty on European Union (1992) (often referred to as Maastricht Agreement) (consolidated version), 2006 O.J. (C 321) E/5
- Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), 1997 O.J. C340/1
- Treaty of Nice (2001), 2001 O.J. (C 80) 1
Finding EU legislation
Finding EU law as currently in force - There is no hard copy compilation of EU law in force – no EU code. To compensate for this, EUR-Lex has a sector called Legislation. It is organized by subject classification, or it can be used with the EUR-Lex search facility.
Tracking EU legislation
--This is the popular name for proposals for legislation presented by the Commission ("COM").
--An extensive collection of COM documents is found in the Legislation in preparation and the Documents of Public Interest sectors of EUR-Lex.
- PreLex - This is the main website for monitoring the EU lawmaking process. It has good search capability.
- Legislative Observatory - This website tracks the legislative process in the European Parliament. It also has good search capability.
Finding judgments of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance - The official reports are formally titled Reports of Cases before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance JX 1984 C3 C69
- Note that the official reports are usually abbreviated E.C.R. ("European Court Reports").
- The standard commercial reporter is Common Market Law Reports. JX 1982 A1 C64
- The website of the Court has the full text of judgments back to June 1997.
- Westlaw has the full text of judgments from the beginning (1954) in the EU-CS database. Lexis has a file called CELEX European Union Cases also back to 1954.
Finding national implementing measures
- EU directives have to be implemented in member-state law by legislation.
- Lexis has a file called CELEX EU Law Database: National Provisions Implementing Directives that gives references to national legislation.
- On Westlaw in the European Union Legislation database (EU-LEG) directives are followed by references to national implementing measures.
V. EU law on Westlaw and Lexis
- Both Westlaw and Lexis have large databases of EU legal information.
- Both have links to their EU databases on the front page of their directories.
- Most of the information duplicates sources described in this guide.
VI. Citing EU legal materials
- See The Bluebook, 18th ed., pp. 184-187
- See also A Citation Manual for European Community Materials, 23 Fordham Int’l L.J. 935 (2000)
VII. Other research guides
