Borrowing to Survive: Investigating the Functioning of the Court of Justice of the EU through Comparative Law

Abstract

Leonardo Pierdominici’s ‘The Mimetic Evolution of the Court of Justice of the EU. A Comparative Law Perspective’ is discussed here. I start considering the methodological tenets of the book, which investigates how the Court of Justice borrowed institutional settings from other jurisdictions and bent them to its needs throughout its history. The five substantive chapters of the book are then considered. Each chapter shows the impact of comparative law on one aspect of the functioning of the Court: the available actions, the appointment of judges, the transparency of decisions, the docket control mechanism, and the style of judgments. I end the review by suggesting a few missing topics that the book may have investigated.