European Union
Don’t confuse the EU/EC with the Council of Europe…
EU
CoE
Member States cede some of their sovereign rights to the
EC.
Thus, the EC is able to issue sovereign acts that have the
same force as laws in individual states.
Decisions require unanimity, which means that every
country has a power of veto.
The Council of Europe is therefore designed only with
international cooperation in mind.
The European flag represents both the Council of Europe and the European Union to
strengthen the idea of solidarity between the different organizations for a united and
democratic Europe
.
Major Council of Europe
Institutions
Major European Union
Institutions
Committee of Ministers
(ministers of foreign affairs from
each member state)
Council of the European Union
or Council of Ministers (member
state representatives, usually
foreign affairs ministers)
European Commission (elected
members)
European Council (member state
heads of state)
Parliamentary Assembly
(appointed or elected members)
European Parliament (elected
members)
European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Justice
European Commission of Human
Rights
Economic & Social Committee
Congress of Local & Regional
Authorities
Committee of the Regions
EU Law Making Institutions
• European Commission
• European Council
• European Parliament
• Court of Justice
The Commission proposes legislation and policies, the
Council approves legislation and can propose legislation of its
own, and the Parliament gives its opinion on proposals,
amended proposals, and addresses questions to the
Commission. The Court of Justice enforces the legislation
under the Treaties.
Other major EU/EC institutions
European Court of Auditors
European Ombudsman
European Data Protection Supervisor
European Central Bank
European Investment Bank
–European Investment Fund
European Economic and Social Committee
Committee of the Regions
• UGA is one of the few law libraries to hold EU
depository status
• Emory's main and law libraries share their EU
depository collection
Europa – official site
http://europa.eu
CommonTypes of documents
• Treaties (Primary Legislation)
• Secondary Legislation
• Case Law
• proposals, reports, press releases, etc.
Primary Legislation = Treaties
• Founding Treaties
– Consolidated Versions
• Accession Treaties
• Other Treaties
Secondary Legislation:
• Regulations
• Directives
• Decisions
• Recommendations
Use this to get
to EUR-Lex,
the EU legal
database
EUR-Lex
Free -access from anywhere - no password needed
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm
EUR-Lex is your portal to EU law
If you have an O.J. citation, and it’s from 1998
to present, go here
Official Journal of the European Union
roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Register
• "L" series = final texts of legislation
• "C" series = notices, reports, proposed legislation
For many documents, the Bluebook will
want you to cite to the Official Journal
“L” # and
page #
Official Journal
PDFs available in
EUR-Lex
Use this search box if you have
citation to O.J. and it's 1998 or later
Use if O.J. volume is prior to
'98 (selected full text); if not
here, use the print O.J. in
the Basement
Browse O.J. by year from 1998-current
EUR-Lex Simple Search Screen
Infant formulae
General EURLex “Search Terms” searching
beer
EURLex biblio page
O.J. cite
formats available
relevant dates
search terms
even more EURLex biblio page
legislative history
relevant
domestic
law
citator function
Index providing
subject access to
EU legislation
Consolidated Legislation
integration of basic instruments, along with amendments
and corrections, into single, non-official documents
access via the Directory of Community Legislation or at
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/legis/avis_consolidation.htm
Useful summaries of EU legislation by subject
The Commission's documents are initially issued as "COM docs"
while final versions of most docs end up in the O.J.
Broad subject areas
Where you’ll find
merger and antitrust
cases
Commission page on “competition”
PreLex tracks pending legislation
http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/apcnet.cfm?CL=en
The Legislative Observatory on EuroParl
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/index.jsp?language=en
Like Prelex, this
site is useful for
tracking pending
legislation
What are "white papers"
- documents containing proposals for EU action
in a specific policy area
What are "green papers"
- discussion papers published by the
Commission on a specific policy area; often
precede a White Paper
These are issued as COM docs; we have paper thru early 2000s,
also available online at
http://europa.eu/documents/comm/white_papers/index_en.htm
and
http://europa.eu/documents/comm/green_papers/index_en.htm
CURIA: ECJ’s site
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/
To get to search form
Note: you can’t always get the necessary citation
information from the Court’s site. EUR-Lex
provides citation information
Search form on the court’s site
beer
But note date restriction
If you know the year and case number use this
If you just know the year, use this
Bib notice is
your friend
for citation
info
Includes everything you need for proper citation…(if the
official cite is available).
But what if you don’t know the case number or year and just
want to search for cases on a topic?
telecommunications
networks
Commercially-published case reports
Common Market Law Reports
commercial set containing selected reports from the
European Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the
European Commission, and national courts and tribunals
European Community Cases
commercial set containing selected reports from the ECJ
and the Commission
European Commercial Cases
commercial set w/ selected national court decisions in
English (focus on commercial dealings w/in the EU;
covers competition, information exchange,
professional negligence, product liability, agency and
distribution
http://www.eurunion.org
European Commission's Delegation to the U.S.
Focus is on EU-US
relations
Sign up for
e-mail
alerts from
Delegation
to the U.S.
GlobaLex provides a good research guide for the EU at
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/European_Union1.htm
http://libguides.law.uga.edu/content.php?pid=75721