Good governance in Europe’s integrated market

Book abstract:

The Academy of European Law in Florence has a mission to produce scholarly analyses which are at the cutting edge of the two fields in which it works: European Union Law and human rights law. This volume of collected essays written by an impressive range of international lawyers is part of that mission. In an innovative networking style the contributors explore the constitutional and the administrative law dimensions of the developing European market governance, and consider the changes which have occurred from the perspective of both legal and social theory.

The networking style places increased responsibility on the editors to provide the linkage and stream of consciousness that runs through the work and this is approached by way of an elaborate editorial by Christian Joerges (co-editor). The work then follows in three sections. The first addresses European Constitutional Law and explores issues of Institutional Balance, the role of the Judiciary, and the tensions and compromises which arise from the interaction of administrative governance and parliamentary democracy. The next section deals with Administering Europe and comprises four contributions, which examine the institutional structure of Europe, the growing gap that has emerged between new patterns of governance and traditional legal analyses. Contributors seek to tackle the issue of what might make the law of European market administration an authoritative legal order and what place in European Law does the precautionary principle occupy with its inherent ambiguities. The final section 'Good Governance and Democratic Theory' explores the conflict which stalks European constitutional debate, that between constitutionalism and democracy. Will the legality of legislation at the nation state level continue to be threatened or eroded by utilitarian considerations of the economic rights and liberties of the market citizen or can an accommodation be reached between European economic law and the political sovereignty of the nation states.

The work is essentially directed to the legal community and will interest practitioners and scholars in European Law and a possible European Union constitution.

Christian Joerges is Professor of Economic Law at the European University Institute, Florence. Renaud Dehousse is Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).