ABSTRACT
Few courts have garnered as much attention as the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The ECJ's prominence as an active and, in many respects, successful international court has led to a scholarly literature impressive in both its breadth and depth. This chapter provides some background on the ECJ, focusing on the institutional structure of the court and key features of the adjudication process. It reviews research on a series of key theoretical and empirical issues: the rationale for the ECJ, the procedural politics of adjudication, and the efficacy of ECJ rulings. One of the theoretical puzzles that flow from the motivations for the member states to create the ECJ is the willingness of the member states to accept the major doctrinal innovations of direct effect and supremacy. The reliance on national institutions for implementation obviously raises the question of how and whether ECJ rulings can go much beyond what member states want.
