Thank you all for coming along and thank you for the invitation as well to come and

come and discuss some of my work on the Court of Justice.

I've been working on the Court of Justice for probably about eight, nine, ten years.

And I'd like to talk a little bit today about a sort of research project that I've finished,

to the extent you can finish a research project, well, I've submitted a book.

And here comes a little shameless plug.

Here we are.

The title of the book is the Court of Justice of the European Union as an institutional actor,

Judicial Lawmaking and its Limits.

And what I kind of do in this book is to explore the role of the Court of Justice as what I call an institutional actor in European integration.

And by that I mean simply as an institution of the Union.

Because I think, and it's always struck me, that there is a sort of untapped, sort of duality going on about the court's role.

When we think about the Court of Justice in European

integration, we're familiar with its contribution to the process and its influential

policymaking and various other roles. But we tend to think about the Court of Justice,

both legal scholars and political scientists alike, as a court. We think of it as a court. But it's

also an institution of the union. It is defined by the treaties under Article 13, T.E.U. As an

institution of the union. And what I try and do in my work is explore the implications of that dual status,

not just being a court, but also an institution of the union. And what I'm particularly

interested in, and this is what I look at in the book, is scrutinising the court's institutional role,

so its interpretive choice,

is the way it exercises its policymaking functions,

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