ABSTRACT
The best way to understand European Union (EU) law is to start at the beginning, which inevitably involves consideration of why the EU exists at all and it is possible to highlight the end of the Second World War, in 1945, as the catalyst which set in motion events that have led to the creation of the EU. The economies of the various European States had been devastated by successive wars and the peoples of Europe were anxious to build a peaceful and stable future for themselves. Co-operation between European Governments led, in 1947, to the creation of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organisation which adopted the European Convention on Human Rights and established the European Court of Human Rights. The original Community, the European Coal and Steel Community, created in 1952, was designed as a first step in achieving lasting peace and increasing prosperity in a continent scarred by war.
