EU Law

How to find EU Law

How to find European Union founding treaties
How to find secondary legislation
How to find EU case law
How to find printed sources of EU case law
How to find electronic sources of EU case law
How to find printed journals in the Library
How to find electronic law journals in the Library
How to find journal articles about EU law
Useful Web Links

General Guide

A good guide that explains how to find relevant European law and legal materials is :

Knowles, J Effective legal research 3rd edn. 340.072 KNO

There is also an EU Law Tutorial available to help you find information.

How to find European Union founding treaties

The current, consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union were published in the Official Journal (OJ C 83 of 30 March 2010)

The main sources of Community law were the treaties which established the three seperate communities:

ECSC (Treaty of Paris, 1951) - expired
EEC (Treaty of Rome, 1957)
EURATOM (Treaty of Rome, 1957)

The key amending treaties were:

Lisbon Treaty (OJ C 306 of 17 December 2007)
Treaty of Nice (OJ C 80 of 10 March 2001)
Treaty of Amsterdam (OJ C 340 of 10 November 1997)
Treaty on European Union, amended by the Maastricht Treaty (Consolidated version, 1992 OJ C 224 of 31 August 1992)

The EUR-Lex website also provides access to the treaties, the directory of legislation in force and the ongoing consoldiated legislation.

Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the functioning of the EU

How to find secondary legislation

EU secondary legislation is made up of five legal instruments: Regulations, Directives, Decisions, Recommendations, and Opinions.

The binding legal instruments are:

Regulations - binding directly on member states - Council Regulation (EC) 1334/2000
of 22 June 2000 on setting up a Community regime for the control of exports of dual-use items and technology [2000] OJ L159/1

Directives - framework statutes binding only through enactment of a law within the member state - Council Directive 2010/18/EU of 8 march 2010 implementing the revised framework on parental leave [2010] OJ L68/13

Decisions- binding only the member states or parties to which it is addressed - Commission Decision (EC) 2008/794 of 9 October 2008 on the allocation to the United Kingdom of additional days at sea within ICES decision VIIe [2008] OJ L272/15

EU legislation is freely available on EUR-Lex. You can search EUR-Lex via its simple search screens by word, document number, date, OJ reference, CELEX number

For draft legislation try Prelex, a Commission database for monitoring the decision making process in the EU

There are also the legal databases that include coverage of EU primary and secondary legislation.

Lexis Library - coverage of treaties, secondary legislation, preparatory documents

Westlaw UK - coverage of treaties, secondary legislation, preparatory documents

How to find EU Case Law

EU case law comes from two institutions: the Court of Justice of the European Communities,often referred to as the European Court of Justice, ECJ, and the Court of First Instance of the European Communities, CFI.

Each case before the courts is allocated a case number. Cases before the Court of Justice have the prefix C; those before the Court of First Instance have the prefix T.

A typical citation to an ECJ case looks like the following:

Case C-132/92 Walls v Friedel M Robert [1993] ECR I-5579

The various elements of the citation mean:

C =ECJ case
132 = case number
92 = year it was added to the Register
Walls v Friedel M Robert = names of the parties
1993 = year of the decision/publication
ECR = where the text can be found (European Court Reports)
I-5579 = Section I starting on page 5579

If you do not know the meaning of the abbreviated citation i.e. ECR, then you can use the the Cardiff Index to Legal abbreviations

How to find printed sources of EU case law

The text of cases will be found in the Report of cases before the Court, which are known as the European Court Reports (ECR). These are shelved with the Law Reports on Level 2 of the Library. ECJ cases are reported in Section I, those from the CFI in Section II. Cases are published in the Reports according to the year in which the judgement was given, so an issue will contain decision on cases registered in different years.

Common Market Law Reports (CMLR) also provide texts of judgements and opinions. These are also shelved with the Law Reports on Level 2.

Use the Library catalogue and search using the full law report title (not the abbreviation) in the keyword search to find titles which are kept in the Library

How to find electronic sources of EU case law

The best way to find electronic sources of EU law reports is to search by the law report title (not the abbreviation) via the Ejournals@surrey list

Key online resources for UK case law are:

EUR-Lex: Free database for EU case law. Coverage form 1954.

Curia :Free database for EU case law since June 1997.

Lexis Library: European Court of Justice cases from 1954, General Court, Civil Service Tribunal, European Court of Human Rights Cases, All England Law Reports: European Cases

Westlaw UK: European Court of Justice cases from 1954, General Court, Civil Service Tribunal, Includes the official case law reports as included in the ECR. Common Market Law Reports, Environmental Law Reports, European Human Rights Law Reports, European Patent Office Reports, European Commercial Cases, European Trade Mark Reports.

How to find printed journals in the Library

The printed law journals are arranged alphabetically by title and are shelved with the Law Collection on Level 2. Principal European law journals held in the Library are: Common market law review, European law review and Yearbook of European law.

It should be easy to find a particular journal article if you have the full reference. There are several ways of citing journals but a typical citation would be:

T Tridimas,'The court of justice and judicial activism' (1996) 21 EL Rev 199

Use the Library catalogue and search using the full journal title (not the abbreviation)
Use the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations to find out the full meaning of the abbreviation if necessary
The catalogue will show if the journal is online or in print or both
Locate on Level 2 in the Law Collection

How to find electronic law journals on Europe

To find which journals are available electronically you can either search the Library catalogue by Journal title, any record that has a "Full Text" link means there is electronic access to that title.

Otherwise you may go directly to the EJournals@surrey page.

Search using the full journal title (not the abbreviation)
Use the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations to find out the full meaning of the abbreviation if necessary
The Ejournals@surrey page will direct you to the correct database

Most of the law electronic journals will link through to the 2 key databases:

Lexis Library
Westlaw UK

How to find journal articles about EU law

There are many sources for finding out legal journal articles by subject (European Union)

Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals - available on HeinOnline

Legal Journals Index - available via Westlaw UK (use the journals menu not the EU menu)

ECLAS: European Commission's Library Catalogue - Free resource. Provides details of books and articles on Europe.

Please note that the majority of our online legal resources are available to current University of Surrey staff and students only.