Statistics of the European Court of Justice

International courts seem to be playing a larger and larger role in world politics. Particularly when focusing on the impact of courts on the actions and activities of supranational organizations like the EU, some scholars have argued that it is the courts that are the real force behind increased integration. This is because the courts are the locus of decision-making power in disputes between member nations. For instance, in the EU, if France and Germany have a dispute over an economic policy the conflicts across the two countries, they will turn to the ECJ for an authoritative decision.

In order to assess the kinds of cases the ECJ has adjudicated recently, visit ECJ Annual Reports page http://curia.eu.int/en/pei/rapan.htm and then in the Judicial Statistics section, examine the data for 1999 and 2000. (If you need to download Acrobat reader to your computer, the link is available on that page, it is a free download). For the purposes of this exercise, take a look at the tables titled "Subject Matter of Action" (Table 11 for both years). Try to answer the following questions in the essay boxes provided below:

• What subject areas show the most decisions by the ECJ?
• Are they same areas each of the two years?
• Why do you think these areas are the most often adjudicated by the ECJ?
• How closely does the substantive distribution of cases shown here correspond with the "Key Issues" (http://europa.eu.int/geninfo/key_en.htm) section on the main EU site?
• What does this tell you about the power and role of the ECJ in the EU?

1		What subject areas show the most decisions by the ECJ?
2		Are they same areas each of the two years?
3		Why do you think these areas are the most often adjudicated by the ECJ?
4		How closely does the substantive distribution of cases shown here correspond with the "Key Issues" (http://europa.eu.int/geninfo/key_en.htm) section on the main EU site?
5		What does this tell you about the power and role of the ECJ in the EU?