Establishing the supremacy of European law : the making of an international rule of law in Europe

How did the European Community's legal system become the most effective international legal system in the world? This book begins where traditional legal accounts end, explaining why national judiciaries took on a role enforcing European law supremacy against their governments, and why national governments accepted an institutional change that greatly compromised national sovereignty. Alter then shows how harnessing private litigants to monitor state compliance with European law, and national courts to enforce European law against their governments, extended the influence of European law into the political process itself, leading to the emergence of an international rule of law in Europe.