General principles of EC law

European Law Series:
Longman's European Law Series is a series of topic-based books on EC law aimed primarily at a student readership. Authors have been encouraged to take an academic and critical approach, placing each topic in its overall Community context, and also in its socio-economic and political context where relevant. In European Access in June 1998 we covered one of the first titles in the series, 'EC consumer law and policy'. In this issue we cover two further titles:

GenThis book provides an authoritative account and analysis of the general principles of EC law - essential to an understanding not only of the rapidly growing and increasingly specialised areas of substantive EC law, and the process of judicial review, but also to the evolution of the EU more generally.

A central concern of this book is to explain how the European Court of Justice has developed general principles of law derived from the national legal systems of the Member States, from the EC Treaty itself, and from the international agreements to which Member States are parties - and then to show how these general principles have been applied and interpreted in practice. At the same time it is shown how a case-law doctrine (EC 'common law') has evolved into an express recognition of fundamental rights under the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties on European Union.

Chapter headings include: The development of general principles; principles derived from the Community Treaties; proportionality; legitimate expectations and legal certainty; procedural rights and privacy; property rights; principles of good administration; status and use of general principles of Community law; influence of principles of Community law within the legal systems of the UK.

Usher, John A.
General principles of EC law
European Law Series
Longman, 1998
ISBN: 0-582-27749-3
Price: £15.99