Who is steering the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice? The influence of Member State submissions on copyright law

Favale, Marcella; Kretschmer, Martin; Torremans, Paul

Abstract

© 2020 The Authors. The Modern Law Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Modern Law Review Limited. The juridification of the European policy process is increasingly fragile, and little understood. This study develops a novel methodology to investigate the influence of Member States on the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The focus is on the domain of copyright law which has seen a dramatic escalation of preliminary references to the Court, indicating a normative void. Examining 170 documents relating to 42 cases registered between 1998 and 2015, we measure empirically the impact of submissions by Member States and the European Commission on the interpretation of copyright concepts. We show that France is the most influential country by some distance, both in terms of the number of interventions (an ‘investment’ in policy) and in terms of persuasive power (arguments adopted by the Court). The evidence also suggests that the departure of the UK from EU litigation will disturb the delicate balance of CJEU jurisprudence.

Citation

Favale, M., Kretschmer, M., & Torremans, P. (2020). Who is steering the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice? The influence of Member State submissions on copyright law. Modern Law Review, 83(4), 831-860. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12527

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 20, 2020
• Online Publication Date: May 18, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-07
• Deposit Date: Jan 25, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 29, 2020
• Journal: The Modern Law Review
• Print ISSN: 0026-7961
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-2230
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 83
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 831-860
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12527
• Keywords: Law
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3804747
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-2230.12527