This book consists of interrelated essays by many past and present members of the EUI Law Department. The contributors are all well-known specialists in their fields, whose essays address such issues as the effects of integration upon certain national laws, the elaboration of EU law to provide a new framework for or replacement for national laws, the piece-meal development of specific legal strands of EU law and their intertwining with national or international laws, and the indirect and sometimes unintended consequences of European integration with regard to national, EU, or international law.

The book marks and illustrates the significant contribution of the European University. Institute Law Department to contemporary legal scholarship. It is intended to indicate the kind of legal research which has been done and which is being done today at the EUI. It also aims to make more widely known the themes, approaches, and methods pioneered in the EUI Law Department, including its European and international focus, its comparative approach, and its generally contextual method.