UNITE · Unification Through Law: The Court of Justice of the European Union as Cultural-Moral Agent
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-10-01 → 2022-08-13
- EU contribution
- €207,312
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Unification Through Law: The Court of Justice of the European Union as Cultural-Moral Agent
The main aim of the UNITE project was (1) to reveal the cultural narratives underlying the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) through the (2) use of a new research method grounded in political philosophy and (3) to explore the identified narratives’ potential of cultural re(production. More specifically, by drawing from cultural legal studies, UNITE started from the presumption of the judicial opinion constituting a cultural artefact through which cultural narratives are transmitted that offer imaginative means to citizens to explain themselves and their community. For the purpose of disentangling such narratives, UNITE suggested the use of a wide range of political philosophies (liberalism, utilitarianism, perfectionism, communitarianism, and post-Marxist-theory) as analytical tool through which the judgements of the Court of Justice can be read and understood. After having revealed some cultural narratives underlying the CJEU’s case-law, UNITE examined whether such narratives have the potential of cultural re(production) in that they are actually able to alter political consciousness, that is, how citizen’s think about the community they inhabit. This research objectives of UNITE have a distinct social relevance because they shed light on the importance of the language used by legal scholars use when analyzing and interpreting EU law. More precisely, what I hope to have improved with my research is the awareness amongst judges, lawyers, and legal scholars as to the impact of the language they use in legal interpretations for the EU’s political identity.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has strongly contributed to the European Union (’EU’) as we know it today, through enlarging the competence base of the EU through its case-law. However, the current challenges that the EU polity faces, ranging from consecutive waves of enlargement, financial bail-outs, and waves of immigration, suggests that the EU may not need integration anymore, but unification. It may require an EU citizenry that is united in solidarity and willing to organize itself collectively, through forms of self-government. In the existing EU constitutional scholarship, judges are assumed to be able contribute to a unified citizenry by two major means. One the one side of the debate stand those conceptualization courts as ‘legal-interpretative’ agents that can strengthen forms of self-government if they interpret the law on the basis of distinct hermeneutical theories of legal interpretation representing the will of the citizens. On the other side of debate stand those conceptualization courts as ‘political-constitutional’ agents that can speak with the voice of the citizenry if they fulfill certain institutional conditions that allow citizens to participate in court decision. UNITE aims to explore new means through which the CJEU could, through its case-law, contribute to the unification of the EU citizenry and flourishing forms of EU self-government through conceptualization it as ‘cultural-moral’ agent. More specifically, UNITE is grounded in the assumption that the judicial opinion is a cultural artifact, which can, through the cultural narrative it is grounded on, give expression to and alter how citizens think about themselves and the community they inhabit. The project aims to reveal the shape and form of such cultural narratives through suggesting the use of political philosophy as analytical tool.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/846070
- https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/research/analyzing-the-judgements-of-the-european-court-of-justice-as-cultural-artefacts/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union