European Union

EUMember 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.

CoEDecisions 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

.

Don’t confuse the EU/EC with the Council of 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

• European Commission• European Council • European Parliament• Court of Justice

EU Law Making Institutions

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.

European Court of Auditors European Ombudsman European Data Protection Supervisor

European Central BankEuropean Investment Bank

–European Investment Fund

European Economic and Social CommitteeCommittee of the Regions

Other major EU/EC institutions

• 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 sitehttp://europa.eu

• Treaties (Primary Legislation)• Secondary Legislation• Case Law• proposals, reports, press releases, etc.

CommonTypes of documents

• Founding Treaties– Consolidated Versions

• Accession Treaties• Other Treaties

Primary Legislation = Treaties

• Regulations • Directives• Decisions• Recommendations

Secondary Legislation:

Use this to get to EUR-Lex, the EU legal database

EUR-Lex Free -access from anywhere - no password needed

EUR-Lex is your portal to EU law

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm

If you have an O.J. citation, and it’s from 1998

to present, go here

Official Journal of the European Unionroughly 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

Official Journal

PDFs available in EUR-Lex

“L” # and page #

Use this search box if you have citation to O.J. and it's 1998 or later

Browse O.J. by year from 1998-current

Use if O.J. volume is prior to '98 (selected full text); if not here, use the print O.J. in the Basement

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

citator functionrelevant domestic law

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 legislationhttp://ec.europa.eu/prelex/apcnet.cfm?CL=en

The Legislative Observatory on EuroParlhttp://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/index.jsp?language=en

Like Prelex, this site is useful for tracking pending legislation

What are "white papers"

What are "green papers"

- documents containing proposals for EU action in a specific policy area

- 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.htmand

http://europa.eu/documents/comm/green_papers/index_en.htm

CURIA: ECJ’s sitehttp://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/

Note: you can’t always get the necessary citation information from the Court’s site. EUR-Lex provides citation information

To get to search form

Search form on the court’s site But note date restriction

beer

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

commercial set containing selected reports from the European Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the European Commission, and national courts and tribunals

Common Market Law Reports

European Community Casescommercial 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

Commercially-published case reports

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