General Principles of EU Law: The Ghost in the Platonic Heaven in Need of Conceptual Clarification

Authors

  • Constanze Semmelmann McGill University/University of St. Gallen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ppeu.2013.7

Keywords:

European Union, General principles of EU law, legal interpretation EU law, teleology

Abstract

General principles are en vogue in EU law – and in need of conceptual clarification. A closer look at several concepts of principle in legal philosophy and legal theory sheds light upon the concept of general principles in EU law. A distinction between an aprioristic model of principle and a model of principle informed by legal positivism may contribute to clarifying the genesis of a (general) principle in EU law, as well as its nature and functions. This paper demonstrates that an evolution has taken place from a reliance on seemingly natural law inspired reflections of general principles via the desperate search to ground general principles in various kinds of sources based on a more or less sound methodology  towards an increasing reliance on strictly positivistic approaches. Against this backdrop, general principles are likely to lose significance where there are other norms while retaining an important yet uncontrollable role where the traditional canon of sources is silent.

Author Biography

Constanze Semmelmann, McGill University/University of St. Gallen

Constanze is Wainwright Junior Fellow at McGill University, Montreal, Canada and a lecturer at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland.

Her main fields of interest include the EU internal market, EU competition law, EU citizenship, EU institutional law with a particular focus on the judiciary, the public-private distinction in EU law, legal theory, comparative law as well as theoretical and institutional aspects of international law.

Constanze studied law with a specialisation in European and International Law in Würzburg, Salamanca, Leuven and Trier and holds a law degree from the University of Trier (GER). She completed her doctorate in EU competition law at the University of St. Gallen (Social policy goals in the interpretation of Article 81 EC, Nomos, 2008) after a term as visiting scholar at the European University Institute in Florence. Constanze has held research positions at the University of St. Gallen (Institute for European and International Business Law), the European University Institute in Florence (EU competition law) and the University of Fribourg (Institute for European Law). She was an intern at the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the EU in Brussels, the German Consulate General in Chicago, the law firm Gleiss Lutz in Brussels and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Constanze was awarded a three-year research grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation for 2010-2012. Her research project seeks to examine the role of comparative law in EU law, focusing on the example of the evolution of the prohibition of abuse of law in EU law as an emerging general principle.  Constanze spent the year 2010 as a visiting fellow at the Institute for European and Comparative Law in Oxford before taking up the visiting scholar position at the Center for International and Comparative Law at Michigan Law School in 2011. The final phase of the project was completed during a term as visiting scholar at the University of Maastricht in 2012.

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Published

2013-08-20

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2013)

Section

Articles

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