%0 Journal Article
%T The European Court of Justice and the judicialization of EU governance
%A Alec Stone Sweet
%J Living Reviews in European Governance
%D 2010
%I Institute for European Integration Research (EIF); University of Vienna
%X This Living Reviews article evaluates the most important strains of social science research on the impact of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on integration, EU-level policymaking, and national legal orders. Section 2 defines the concepts of judicialization and governance, and discusses how they are related. As the article demonstrates, the ˇ°constitutionalization of the EU,ˇ± and its effect on EU governance, is one of the most complex and dramatic examples of judicialization in world history. Section 3 discusses the institutional determinants of judicial authority in the EU in light of delegation theory. The European Court, a Trustee of the Treaty system rather than a simple Agent of the Member States, operates in an unusually broad zone of discretion, a situation the Court has exploited in its efforts to enhance the effectiveness of EU law. Section 4 focuses on the extraordinary impact of the European Court of Justice, and of the legal system it manages, on the overall course of market and political integration. Section 5 provides an overview of the process through which the ECJˇŻs case law ¨C its jurisprudence ¨C influences the decision-making of non-judicial EU organs and officials. Section 6 considers the role of the ECJ and the national courts in monitoring and enforcing Member State compliance with EU law, a task that has provoked a steady Europeanization of national law and policymaking.
%K neo-functionalism
%K court politics
%K integration theory
%K supremacy
%K intergovernmentalism
%K European Court of Justice
%K agency theory
%K ECJ
%K multi-level governance
%K judicial review
%U http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2010-2