This book provides a broad-ranging assessment of the Court's contribution to the integration process. It shows how the Court has taken advantage of opportunities when they have arisen in the European political process to 'constitutionalize' the founding treaties and to exert a strong influence on policy decisions. It also examines why the Court's active role has not encountered greater opposition and analyses the implications for the Court of current issues, and challenges confronting the European Union.

'In this important study Renaud Dehousse succeeds brilliantly in making the European Court of Justice accessible to non-legal scholars, but he also does much more...No student of the European Union can afford to neglect [it].' - Professor William E. Paterson
'an informative and thought-provoking account of the Court's role in European integration.' - Jason Campbell, Journal of Common Market Studies

Preface
Introduction
The Court in the European Institutional System
The Constitutionalization of the Community Legal Order
The Court and the Dynamics of Integration
The Juridification of the Policy Process
The Paradox of Compliance
The Structural Roots of Judicial Self-Restraint
Conclusion

RENAUD DEHOUSSE is Professor of Law, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law.