Research on Supranational Legal Integration

Clifford Carrubba (Emory University) and I have several research projects exploring decision-making by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its implications for supranational legal integration. Funded by an NSF Grant, we are near completion of a dataset on all decisions by the ECJ. This dataset will allow us to study empirically the process of legal integration in Europe. In particular, we can evaluate competing theories of how the European Court of Justice influences European integration. 

This research has generated several papers:

1. Legal Integration and Use of the Preliminary Ruling Process in the European Union. Carrubba, Clifford and Lacey Murrah. Forthcoming. International Organization.

Abstract: Scholars agree that the preliminary ruling system of the European Court of Justice has been instrumental in promoting European integration; however, no consensus has been reached as to why the system is used. Although many explanations have been posited, there has been no systematic comparative test among them to date. In this paper, we perform this test. We find evidence that transnational economic activity, public support for integration, monist or dualist tradition, judicial review and the public’s political awareness influence use of the preliminary ruling system.

2. The Politics of Decision-Making in the European Court of Justice: The System of Chambers and Distribution of Cases for Decision. Gabel, Matthew. 2003. Paper presented at the ECPR meetings, Marburg, Germany.

Abstrtact: No study of ECJ decision-making or the politics of the European Court of Justice acknowledges or assesses the use of Chambers, which consist of subsets of judges, to decide cases. Yet previous research on this type of division of labor in other courts—such as the Supreme Court of Canada and the Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States—indicates that the distribution of cases among subsets can have significant effects on the decision of the Court. In this paper I examine the use of Chambers and evaluate whether this feature of decision-making can influence the decisions made by the Court. First, I provide a historical description of the development and use of Chambers. Based on primary documents, this research shows that the Court has gradually expanded its use of the Chambers system to allow almost all types of cases to be assigned to small Chambers. Second, I show quantitatively the increasing importance of the Chambers system over the past twenty years and provide some suggestive data that the assignment of cases is to Chambers and to Judge-Rapporteurs varies in systematic ways that may affect judicial decision-making.

3. Do National Governments Sway ECJ Decisions?” Clifford Carrubba, Matthew Gabel, and Charles Hankle. Paper presented at the 2005 Meetings of the APSA.