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Resistance against the Court of Justice of the European Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2018

Andreas Hofmann
Andreas Hofmann*
Affiliation:
Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: mail@ahofmann.eu
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Abstract

This contribution reviews different forms of resistance against the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). While backlash is rare, various forms of pushback are more common than accounts of the CJEU's apparent success suggest. It is not uncommon that national policy-makers, administrations and the judiciary fail to comply with individual rulings. Moreover, Member State authorities have developed multiple strategies to limit the practical effect of controversial lines of CJEU case-law. The availability of ‘work-arounds’ that national authorities can live with shields the CJEU against significant backlash. At the same time, the multiple processes of pushback in the Member States lead to an outcome of considerable heterogeneity.

Keywords

international courtsEuropean Court of Justiceimplementationcompliancebacklash
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 14 , Special Issue 2: Resistance to International Courts , June 2018 , pp. 258 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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