The Interest in the Judicial Enforcement of EU Law

Abstract

Why is a study on the judicial enforcement of European law through national courts important? What does the existing literature say on this issue and what has it overlooked? What other, broader strands of contemporary political science research are concerned with public interest group litigation before national courts? And what are the broader implications of such a study for this research? In this chapter, I provide answers to these questions in order to stimulate the reader’s interest in the issue of enforcing EU law through national courts. First, I discuss the existing literature on litigation as an enforcement instrument for EU law. I show that although there is a rich ‘abstract’ literature on the issue analysing the potential of this enforcement instrument, there is a clear gap when it comes to empirical studies. Second, I give a brief overview of more general prominent political science research on the role of litigation before national courts in the EU. Both neo-functionalist approaches to European integration and the literature on democratic governance through the courts make implicit assumptions with regard to the role of (public) interest group litigation before national courts. They do not, however, support these assumptions with empirical evidence. Third, I give a short overview of an empirical puzzle with regard to the varied effects of public interest group litigation aimed at the enforcement of EU environmental law. I then sum up the discussion by posing the key research question of this book: how can we explain the differing effects of public interest group litigation on the implementation of European law? It should be noted that key definitional concepts, such as ‘public interest groups’, and the literature useful for the theoretical explanation of the differing effects of public interest group litigation will be discussed in the next chapter.