Bypassing (a lack of) archives: a prosopography approach of the history of the European Court of Justice, 1950s-1970s
Ever since its landmark decisions Van Gend en Loos and Costa v. ENEL, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has played a key role in the so-called ‘constitutionalization’ of the European legal order. The fact that its jurisprudence has given EU law a proto-federal framework has been demonstrated, analyzed and commented in countless publications by legal scholars and social scientists, who have tried to grasp how the ECJ could consistently pursue its active prointegration path without provoking a rebellion by the Member States.