Precedents and Case-Based Reasoning in the European Court of Justice

Marc Jacob is a member of the international arbitration group of a leading international law firm, where he advises and represents sovereign and corporate entities in investment treaty disputes and cross-border commercial arbitrations. He is also a lecturer at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Setting precedents: law made in Luxembourg; 3. Determining the essence of ECJ precedents; 4. Precedent application by the ECJ; 5. Avoiding ECJ precedents I: distinguishing; 6. Avoiding ECJ precedents II: departing; 7. ECJ precedents in context; 8. The normativity of ECJ precedents; 9. Conclusions and suggestions.

'… provides a valuable and highly approachable exposition of the normativity of precedent (stare decisis) from both civil and common law perspectives to non-domestic international and EU law ones.' Suvi Sankari, Common Market Law Review