The Ghostwriters: Lawyers and the Politics behind the Judicial Construction of Europe

· Cambridge University Press
Ebook
391
Pages

About this ebook

The European Union is often depicted as a cradle of judicial activism and a polity built by courts. Tommaso Pavone shows how this judge-centric narrative conceals a crucial arena for political action. Beneath the radar, Europe's political development unfolded as a struggle between judges who resisted European law and lawyers who pushed them to embrace change. Under the sheepskin of rights-conscious litigants and activist courts, these “Euro-lawyers” sought clients willing to break state laws conflicting with European law, lobbied national judges to uphold European rules, and propelled them to submit noncompliance cases to the European Union's supreme court – the European Court of Justice – by ghostwriting their referrals. By shadowing lawyers who encourage deliberate law-breaking and mobilize courts against their own governments, The Ghostwriters overturns the conventional wisdom regarding the judicial construction of Europe and illuminates how the politics of lawyers can profoundly impact institutional change and transnational governance.

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About the author

Tommaso Pavone is Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, where he researches how lawyers and courts impact social and political change. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and has won the LSA and the EUSA best dissertation prizes alongside APSA's Corwin Award. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

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