15: Justice: The Contribution of the EU- and International Courts

By ensuring or re-establishing peace and legal certainty, a well-reasoned judgment of an impartial judiciary could ideally have a pacifying and preventive effect also for the future and beyond the boundaries of the case actually settled, thus tending to stabilise the legal system. What are the possibilities and limits of such a perspective for EU courts and other international courts?

The system of EU law forms an autonomous legal order of its own, different from national law as well as from classic public international law. This seminar intends to examine the specificities of the EU judiciary as compared to national and other international courts. The compelling direct effect of EU judgments and their guiding and unifying character for the EU level as well as for the national level in the ambit of EU law gives the EU courts activities their own special dimension and importance.

In this context, the courts organisational and procedural framework, above all the access to justice, will have to be reviewed in the light of their specific tasks and competences. The same goes for their specific methods of interpreting and applying the law, not least including inspiration from comparative law. Besides the judicial recognition of general principles of law, alongside with autonomous EU fundamental rights, the realisation of procedural justice and/or substantial justice will also be discussed.