The Court of Justice in the Archives Project builds on recent historical and sociological turns in EU law to bring the European Court of Justice’s (CJEU) archives to life. Researchers engaged in the project spent time analysing cases found in the CJEU fonds, which was opened for consultation in December 2015 at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU).
Reflections from this collective endeavour were first published as Working Papers by the Academy of European Law, and will now be published in a special section of European Papers. Edited by Marise Cremona, Claire Kilpatrick and Joanne Scott, the special section brings together ten individual case studies accompanied by the considerations of participating scholars who represent other disciplines and perspectives.
The articles explore how and why the archives of the Court of Justice (especially the dossiers de procédure) are worthy of the attention of legal scholars, historians and sociologists. The authors and editors, all legal scholars, engage in dialogue with colleagues from other disciplines throughout the special section. Antoine Vauchez and Morten Rasmussen prompt methodological reflections on best practice, while Niamh Nic Shuibhne shows in her paper why lawyers should read the case dossiers and how the archives can serve the purpose of deepening and furthering legal research.
The special section is published in two parts. The first part gathers articles written by Antoine Vauchez, Maria Patrin, Grigorios Bacharis, Alessandro Petti, Justine Muller, Rebecca Munro and Rebecca Williams. The second part gathers articles written by Jaka Kukavica, Sarah Tas, Aruna Michiels, Diego Ginés Martín, Lola Avril and Constantin Brissaud, Morten Rasmussen and Niamh Nic Shuibhne.
Both parts of the special section are available online in open access.