EU Legal Theory

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Supranational Legal Order

The European Union’s legal order is sui generis — a novel legal phenomenon that resists classification within traditional categories of international or domestic law. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) established the foundational doctrines of this new legal order in two landmark decisions. In Van Gend en Loos (Case 26/62, 1963), the Court held that EU law constitutes “a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights” and that EU law creates rights that individuals can enforce before national courts. This doctrine of direct effect transformed EU law from a set of interstate obligations into a source of individual rights. In Costa v ENEL (Case 6/64, 1964), the Court established the supremacy of EU law over conflicting national law, holding that EU law cannot be overridden by domestic legal provisions without the EU’s legal character being called into question. These foundational doctrines created a legal order that is neither purely international nor purely domestic but supranational — binding on states, directly applicable within national legal systems, and enforceable by individuals through national courts.

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EU Legal Theory

The Supranational Legal Order