ABSTRACT
Comparative lawyers have often been attracted to European Community law as a legal system which offers a working example of the comparative law method. Independently of the role of comparative law in the development of Community law by the Court of Justice, an awareness of the laws of the Member States is a vital ingredient in the Court’s work. The enlargement of the Communities in 1973 was considered by some commentators to have enlarged the scope of the national laws from which the general principles recognised in Community law could be derived. One of the areas in which review of the Community executive is most highly developed is the area of competition law; and the Court has referred to other systems of law with a view to determining the limits of the Commission’s jurisdiction. In one area of Community law, there is an express reference in the Treaty to “general principles common to the laws of the Member States”.
