The Rule of Law in European Integration: The Path of the Schuman Plan

The pathbreaking book The Rule of Law in European Integration “remains the definitive analysis of the first crucial decade of the formulation of the Constitution of Europe by at the time a little-known court. It must be read by all serious scholars of European integration.”
— Malcolm M. Feeley (University of California at Berkeley), from the new Foreword

In the early days of what would become the European Union, the new entity had a weak and ill-defined legislature and executive. And the European Court of Justice, whose decisions, actions, and even inactions subtly paved the way to a continent’s integration. “Scheingold showed that its efforts, deftly melding law and politics, were a success beyond mere dispute-resolution and development of legal doctrine,” writes Feeley in the new introduction to this classic study. “He was well aware that he was present at the creation of a powerful new institution. Yet he stood virtually alone in seeing what such an institution, using its power this way, could realize in terms of political integration. The resulting book was a masterpiece.”

The formative years of the EU relied on consensus and legal processes, and an emerging, agile Court—but not on the predictable analogy to federalization as in U.S. Constitutional law—to evolve integration and respect for a higher authority than national law. Scheingold reveals these insights by examining political activity with his in-the-trenches research more than by legal scholars’ customary analysis of doctrine.