‘External’ Case Law as a Source of Inspiration for the Court of Justice of the European Union

Abstract

Whilst the other contributions to this book focus on the extent to which the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is taken into account in EU neighbouring countries, notably by the national courts of these countries, this chapter deals with the reverse situation; that is, the extent to which the CJEU pays attention to the case law of both international courts and national courts of third countries. This is done mainly by looking at explicit references to such extraneous sources to be found in CJEU judgments and orders. The main focus is on the case law of the Court of Justice, but some information is also provided concerning the case law of the General Court. In the context of references to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law contained in Court of Justice judgments, some examples are also given of references to CJEU judgments which can be found in the case law of the Human Rights Court.