The judicial enforcement of EU law through national courts: possibilities and limits

Abstract: Since the supremacy of European law was established, public interest group litigation before national courts is regularly presented as a promising instrument of decentralized law enforcement capable of effectively remedying compliance problems. It has, however, attracted little empirical research. This paper analyses the limits and possibilities of this enforcement instrument on the basis of new empirical evidence. After having identified the conditions under which the instrument should work, it presents the results of an in-depth comparative study on the implementation of the Natura 2000 Directives in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In all these countries, environmental organizations turned to their national courts in order to enforce key provisions of the Directives, yet with very differential effects. The essay argues that the instrument is in principle able to remedy compliance problems, but only if a set of demanding conditions is met.