Product Description

European Union Law is an introductory text to EU law, providing a clear understanding of the current law of the European Union and the fundamental principles that support it. It is becoming increasingly difficult for law students and practitioners to manage without at least a working knowledge of EU law and, due to the intricate nature of legislation affecting the European Union, this area of law is often not readily accessible to those seeking to gain such an understanding. This text deals with this problem in a comprehensive and authoritative way, covering a wide range of topics - from the origins of the EU to the more recent treaties which make up and define the European Union's legal system.

Since the publication of the first edition, the Treaty of Amsterdam has been ratified by all fifteen Member States and entered into force on 1 May 1999. This second edition incorporates the changes brought about by the Treaty, and developments in the field of competition law, including a White Paper on modernisation and some important judgments by the Court of First Instance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1345524 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 460 pages

Customer Reviews

Introduction to EU Law
This book is intended to be an introductory text to EU law, and gives a good coverage of the basic subject area. In addition, the start of each chapter comes with a useful summary of the materials that will be covered – and the various subject areas are well organised to enable students to gradually build-up their understanding of the law in this area.

Horspool presents an excellent range of key cases for students, and she provides useful cross-referencing, which help make clear how various subjects fit together. Helpfully too, the author provides a good selection of useful quotations from judgements and opinions.

However, much of the text isn’t written in a particularly user-friendly way. Her sentences are sometimes unnecessarily complicated or confused, and it can take two or three readings to make sense of certain points.

Overall, it’s a good book for the basics, especially if you already have some knowledge of the subject or are using this as a supplementary text. However, if you’re completely new to the subject, this won’t be a straightforward read.

A very good introductory book
Margot Horspool's textbook on European Union Law is divided into nineteen chapters. The first two chapters serve as an introduction and deal with the historical development of the European Communities and European Union as well as the basis of the Communities, i.e. the treaties. The institutions being dealt with in chapter 3, chapter 4 ("The Community legal system") deals with the different sources of Community Law (primary and secondary legislation) and legislative procedures. What follows is in the subsequent chapters a coverage of the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) jurisdiction, of the principles of direct effect, supremacy of EC law and remedies. Of course, the book also deals with the freedoms of Community law (free movement of goods, workers,...) and sex discrimination, too. There are even chapters on competition policy and intellectual property, which are not necessarily covered in a course on EC law, since there are special courses on these two areas of law.
The book is an introductory book and as such it cannot replace more comprehensive works such as Craig and de Búrca's "EU Law: Text, Cases and Materials", especially when writing an essay. It is, however, a very good book due to its clear and concise language. The major decisions of the ECJ's caselaw are dealt with. It is relatively small (440 pages) without being superficial. At the end of each chapter there are self-test questions. The book is very helpful during the preparation for exams as it can be read in a relatively small amount of time.

a dull reading on EU law
This is the book given by the college to the GDL students,and as a student, I must say that I found it very boring to read. Because students are not familiar with the subjects, diagrams, case stories etc. and more reader friendly language should be used to attract students into EU law area. I was put off when I first read the first few pages of it, so I stopped reading it and found another book, which had a more engaging style of writing.
The book which helped me love the subject again was "Law of the European Union (Foundation Studies in Law Series)" by John Fairhurst.