Federal Jurisdiction of the Common Market Court

Abstract

PETER HAY is Assistant Professor of Law, University of Illinois; Member of the Board of Editors and of the Editorial Committee. 1 For more comprehensive treatment of the Court and aspects of its jurisdiction see Bebr, Judicial Control of the European Communities (1962); Buergenthal, Appeals for Annulment by Enterprises in the E.C.S.C., 10 Am. J. Comp. L. (1961) 227; Buergenthal, Private Appeal Against Illegal State Activities in the E.C.S.C., 11 Am. Comp. L. (1962) 325; Lenhoff, Jurisdictional Relationship Between the Court of the European Communities and the Courts of the Member States, 12 Buffalo L. Rev. (1963) 296; Stein & Hay, Legal Remedies of Enterprises in the European Economic Community, 9 Am. J. Comp. L. (1960) 375; Valentine, The Court of Justice of the European Coal and Steel Community (1955). Although the Court of Justice is one of the two common institutions of all three European Communities (EEC, ECSC, EURATOM), the present discussion will focus only on the federal aspects of its jurisdiction under the EEC Treaty: the EURATOM Treaty's provisions, on the one hand, parallel those of the EEC Treaty, so that the present discussion applies equally to that Treaty; on the other hand, judicial federalism is less pronounced in the ECSC Treaty which lacks a provision comparable to Article 177 of the EEC Treaty. See Lenhoff, supra this note, at 320. 2For a discussion of the legal nature of the European Communities see Gaudet, La structure juridique de la Communaute Europeenne du Charbon et de l'Acier, Faculte Internationale de Droit Compare, sess. Et' (1958); De Visscher, Le Droit Public de la Communaute Europeenne du Charbon et de l'Acier (1956); Schlochauer, Zur Frage der Rechtsnatur der Europaischen Gemeinschaft fiir Kohle und Stahl, Rechtsfragen der Internationalen Organisationen, Festschrift fur Hans Wehberg (1956) 361. For a discussion of the term supranational as it is found in the ECSC Treaty and has been used to characterize the European Communities generally see Robertson, Legal Problems of European Integration, 91 Recueil des Cours (1957, I) 105, 143-148 and Haas, The Uniting of Europe (1958) at 33. 3 See EEC Treaty Arts. 181 and 215. The EEC Treaty may be found, in English translation, in 298 U.N.T.S. 14. 4 EEC Treaty Arts. 178, 183, and 215. Tort liability may also arise from a Community act which the Court has annulled. See Art. 176 para. 2. See Much, Die Amtshaftung im Recht der Europiischen Gemeinschaft fur Kohle und Stahl (1952).