Civil Courts and the European Polity: The Constitutional Role of Private Law Adjudication in Europe

The chapters collected in this book explore the place and role of judge-made private law in an emerging European polity.

Examining case-law from the perspective of different theories and viewpoints, scholars and judges assess and reflect on the role of judges in civil cases for polity-building in Europe. The chapters thus present a kaleidoscopic view on the dynamics of private law adjudication against a European backdrop.

The book aims to add a private legal perspective to existing discourses in European constitutional law on Europe’s political constellation. It aspires to enrich two debates - the first on the influence of fundamental rights in private legal relations, and the second on the constitutional dimension of European private law. The contributions are placed within a framework of five sub-categories or dimensions of judge-made European private law: politics of European private law adjudication, rights, remedies, representation and reflections of judges on specific cases.

Chantal Mak is Professor of Fundamental Rights and Private Law at the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law (ACT), University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Betül Kas is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.