Courts & Cases - European Legal Research - The Basics - LibGuides at University of San Francisco School of Law

Introduction to the Courts

This page covers several ways to find cases from the Court of Justice of the European Union (also known informally as the European Court of Justice or ECJ.) The Court currently consists of three courts: The Court of Justice, the General Court (formerly the Court of First Instance), and the Civil Service Tribunal. Basic background information about the Court is available at the Court's site.

The Human Rights section of this guide deals with the European Court of Human Rights.

Curia - Court of Justice of the European Union
Information about and decisions from the Court of Justice and the General Court, and case law from 1954 to the present. (Eur-Lex also has access to case law from 1954 to the present.)
Court of Justice
One of the three courts making up the Court of Justice of the European Union. Deals with "requests for preliminary rulings from national courts, certain actions for annulment and appeals."
General Court
One of the three courts making up the Court of Justice of the European Union. Deals with "actions for annulment brought by individuals, companies and, in some cases, EU governments. In practice, this means that this court deals mainly with competition law, State aid, trade, agriculture, trade marks." Formerly called the Court of First Instance.
Civil Service Tribunal
One of the three courts making up the Court of Justice of the European Union. Deals with "disputes between the EU and its staff."

Case Law from the Court of Justice of the European Union

The Court's site gives researchers several ways to find relevant case law —

InfoCuria Search Engine
Powerful full-text search engine for all case law from the Court, from 1954 to the present. Also allows searching by subject, classification scheme, parties' names, procedure or result, nationalities of parties, and more.
Numerical Access - Case Law Browsing
Browse by date and case number for the text of and information about every case decided by the Court.
Digest of Case Law
[In French.] "A systematic collection of the summaries of judgments and orders of the Court of Justice, the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal." Summaries link to text of judgments.
Alphabetical Table of Subject Matter
[In French.] A PDF document listing "the legal questions dealt with in the decisions of the Court of Justice, the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal and in the Opinions of the Advocates General." Citations in the Alphabetical Table can be plugged into the InfoCuria search engine to find the full text of cases. Currently covers 1985 to 2009.

CJEU Case Law on HeinOnline

HeinOnline has PDFs of the official reports of the European Court of Justice.

Court of Justice of the European Communities Case Law - HeinOnline
Includes: (1) European Court Reports. Reports of European Community Staff Cases: ECR-SC, 1994-1997; (2) Reports of Cases before the Court, 1954-1989; (3) Reports of Cases before the Court of Justice..., 1990- [latest is 2011]; (4) Reports of Cases before the ... Court of First Instance [or General Court], 1993- [latest is 2011]. [Part V of Hein's "Foreign & International Law Resources Database."] [On-campus link for Court of Justice of the European Communities Case Law.]

CJEU Case Law on Lexis

The most complete Lexis source for cases from the Court of Justice of the European Union is "EU Cases."

Sample searches:

For specific cases by name: name("national farmers union")
For specific cases by case number: name(27/76) or name(c-241-01)

EU Cases - Lexis
Court of Justice cases from 1954 to the present. Cases from the General Court of the EU (formerly the Court of First Instance) from 1989 to the present.

CJEU Case Law on Westlaw

Here are two Westlaw sources for ECJ cases. The most complete is the "European Union Cases" source.

European Union Cases - Westlaw
Comprehensive database of cases for the Court of Justice (1954-) and the Court of First Instance (1989-).

Sample searches (run as "Advanced" searches on Westlaw):

For specific cases by name: title("united brands")
For specific cases by case number: dn(27/76) or dn(c-241-01)
For specific cases by European Court Reports citation: citation("1978 ecr 207") or
citation("2008 ecr i-6351")

United Kingdom Cases: Common Market Law Reports - Westlaw
"Full-text decisions from the Court of Justice of the European Communities, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities, the European Free Trade Association Court, and the Commission of the European Communities, as well as national courts and tribunals of E.U. member states. Coverage begins with 1963."

CJEU Cases on Microfiche and in Print at the Zief Law Library

All ECJ cases are available at the Zief Law Library on microfiche. Selected cases are available in various print sets.

Reports of Cases before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance by Court of Justice of the European Union
Call Number: Fiche Cabinet 8, Drawer 1.
Publication Date: 1954-2011
Official reporter, with complete coverage of Court of Justice cases from 1954 to the present and Court of First Instance/General Court cases from 1989 to the present. On microfiche. (ECJ cases went to digital-only publication in 2011 The last print/microform volumes are 2011 v.12C (Series I) and 2011 v.11/12 (Series II).)
Common Market Law Reports (v. 1 - 50) by European Law Centre
Call Number: KJE 925.5 C75 Law Compact Storage
Publication Date: 1962-
Selected cases from the courts. The Zief Library has only volumes 1 (1962) through 50 (1987)
European Union Law Reporter
Call Number: KJE 925.6 .C652 Law Stacks
Publication Date: 1962 -
Selected cases. The Zief Library has: 1961-1983; 1985-1986; and 1989-1999. Formerly known as Common Market Reports and Common Market Reporter.