TEACHING RESOURCES
Teaching the EU
PEDAGOGICAL GOALS AND APPROACHES IN TEACHING EUROPEAN UNION
LAW
Roger J. Goebel
Center on European Union Law Fordham Law School
A. Introduction: The Growing Importance of European Union
Law Studies in US Law Schools
Although European Community studies in US law faculties date
to the early 1960s, the field has developed tremendously since the late 1980s.
This is principally due to the success of the internal market program, which has
drawn the pragmatic interest of multinational American law firms and has, in turn,
led to enhanced study by law professors and students. The ratification of the
Maastricht Treaty, with its concurrent expansion of fields of activity and movement
toward European Union, has also stimulated comparative constitutional law study.
There was initial academic interest in the 1960s in the European Community as
a regional
organization in public international law and trade law. Practitioner interest
in evolving EC antitrust law, trade law and rules on free movement of goods and
services produced greater academic study in the 1970s. Pioneers in the field were
Professors Eric Stein (Michigan), Steve Riesenfeld (California Berkeley), Hans
Smit (Columbia), Peter Hay (Illinois), Peter Herzog (Syracuse), Mario Cappelleti
(Stanford) and Gabriel Wilner (Georgia). My own teaching began in 1978 at NYU,
after EC law practice experience with Coudert Brothers in Paris and Brussels in
the 1960s and 1970s.
The substantial development of EC antitrust and trade law in the 1980s, together
with the manifest success of the internal market program, with its harmonization
of company, securities, banking, insurance, intellectual property, employee rights,
consumer rights and environmental law greatly expanded legal academic studies.
Prominent academics in the 1980s included my co-authors, George Bermann (Columbia),
Bill Davey (Illinois) and Eleanor Fox (NYU), as well as Joseph Weiler (Michigan,
then Harvard), Barry Hawk (Fordham), Richard Buxbaum (California Berkeley), Ralph
Folsom (San Diego), and Diane Woods (Chicago).
When my co-authors and I produced the European Community Law casebook (1200 pages
West 1993, with 1995 and pending 1997 Supplements), this important practical teaching
tool enabled a substantial increase in courses and seminars. In recent years over
60 US law schools have offered courses and seminars, with around 15 regularly
teaching classes of 30-80 students. Fordham has the lead, providing a basic European
Union law course, plus five seminars in EC antitrust law, EC corporate, finance
and trade law, intellectual property law, and EC-US comparative constitutional
law. Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, NYU and Tulane each regularly offer a basic
course and one advanced seminar, taught by its own or visiting faculty.
Among the many law scholars now working the field are Jeffery Atik (Suffolk),
Herbert Bernstein (Duke), Roger Billings (Northern Kentucky), David Gerber (Chicago-
Kent), Mark Jones (Mercer), Cynthia Lichtenstein (Boston College), Willajeanne
McLean (Connecticut), John Murphy (Villanova), Suman Naresh (Tulane), John Schmertz
(Georgetown), Anne-Marie Slaughter (Harvard), Joel Trachtman (Fletcher School),
Leila Wexler (Washington University) and Joachim Zekoll (Tulane).
The expansion in law school teaching has naturally been matched by a substantial
increase in legal scholarship devoted to EU law in US journals, especially the
international journals. Based on casebook sales, one can estimate that around
1500-1800 law students take an EU law course annually.
Finally, there is a small but still substantial and growing law firm interest
in the specialty of EU law practice.
B. Pedagogical Goals in Teaching European Union Law in Law Schools
Naturally, different motives inspire
different legal academics, but some
motives tend to predominate. In my view, there are today four principal
motives for teaching European Union
Law:
- training future lawyers in the substantive fields of EU law
of greatest practice importance, e.g., antitrust, trade law, internal market harmonization
of company, banking and securities law, intellectual property rights, consumer
rights and environmental law;
- studying the constitutional development of the EU as an evolving
federal system, with special emphasis on institutional balance of powers, federal-state
relations, preemption and human rights protection;
- drawing comparative constitutional law analogies and contrasts,
particularly in the fields of Interstate Commerce versus free movement of goods,
persons and services, external relations competence, and human rights protection;
- providing comparative substantive law analogies and contrasts,
especially in antitrust law, employee rights, consumer rights and environmental
protection.
While the first goal of preparation for practice probably dominated law school
teaching in the 1970s and 1980s, I suspect the focus today is as much if not more
on the constitutional and institutional structure of the EU. Law school teaching
methodology tends to concentrate on analysis of the Treaty texts, secondary legislation,
and especially case law of the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance.
Many legal academics attempt to use the Socratic teaching technique in covering
cases and other appropriate material, an approach reflected in the many notes
and questions in our casebook. The best legal teaching manages to achieve a valuable
comparative analysis with US constitutional and substantive law principles, a
difficult task because of the diverse fields involved.
In contrast to other university teaching, legal academics probably devote limited
attention to the decision-making process, the influence of political parties and
interest groups, and economic analysis. Also, other university faculties are more
apt to treat certain specialized fields of EU study, such as agriculture, energy,
transport, research and development, regional aid, etc. Certainly more inter-disciplinary
work between legal academics and other faculty experts would be desirable.
C. Developing the Content for a Basic
European Union
Law Course
Approaches naturally vary, because different legal academics are expert
in, or prefer to concentrate upon, different subject fields. Presumably
today most EU law courses devote between a third and two-thirds of class
time to the constitutional law and institutional structure, with special
emphasis on the doctrines of supremacy, direct effect, and basic right
protection. Usually substantial
class time is also devoted to the free movement of goods and
persons, as well as to the internal market program and legal principles
associated with it (preemption, subsidiarity, the direct effect of directives,
State liabilities in damages, etc.).
A basic course is also apt to give some attention to the essentials of
EC antitrust law, external relations and trade law. Other topics may be
covered briefly, with most likely being the Economic and Monetary Union,
environmental law, and equal workplace rights for men and women. A basic
course is unlikely to devote much time to the second and third pillars.
D. The Content of Advanced EU Law
Seminars
Naturally, advanced seminars may cover a wide variety of substantive fields.
The two most popular seminar topics appear to be EC antitrust law and
EC foreign relations and trade law, sometimes combined in one seminar.
Other advanced seminars emphasize the field of services and establishment,
particularly with a concentration on company, banking and securities law.
Also being taught are seminars on intellectual property law and environmental
law.
I believe my seminar on EC-US constitutional law comparisons is unique,
although Eric Stein used to teach one concentrating on the Commerce Clause
and another on external relations. Although our casebook provides ample
material for a basic course or a seminar in EC antitrust and trade law,
it must naturally be supplemented for instruction in special fields. Thus,
in my EC-US constitutional course, I use simultaneously a leading US constitutional
casebook.
Many seminars require students to write papers and some seminars use to
some extent a problem method or classroom simulations.
