This article explores the conception of law that underlies the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), building on Opinion 2/13 on EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a topical example. Joxerramon Bengoetxea’s metaphor of the CJEU being a ‘Dworkinian court’ fails to explain fundamental aspects of the Court’s case law which are incompatible with Dworkin’s theory of law. Instead, the CJEU is committed to an EU legal system which conforms to Joseph Raz’s theory of the necessary conditions for legal systems: comprehensiveness, openness and a claim of supremacy. Within this paradigm, the supremacy claim of EU law is in need of demystification because it is inherent to any legal system. Paradoxically, while Opinion 2/13 suggests that the EU should be given special treatment in its accession to the ECHR, the Court’s underlying conception of the EU legal system is essentially mimetic of the typical characteristics of national legal systems. This mimetic nature of the EU legal system entails a dissociation between the political and the legal nature of the EU: while the EU is certainly not a state, its legal system is no different from national legal systems.

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为什么欧盟法律要求至高无上

本文以关于欧盟加入欧洲人权公约 (ECHR) 的第 2/13 号意见为主题，探讨了作为欧盟法院 (CJEU) 判例法基础的法律概念。Joxerramon Bengoetxea 将 CJEU 比喻为“德沃金法院”，未能解释法院判例法的基本方面，这些方面与德沃金的法律理论不相容。相反，欧洲法院致力于建立符合约瑟夫·拉兹关于法律体系必要条件理论的欧盟法律体系：全面性、开放性和至高无上的主张。在这种范式中，欧盟法律的至高无上要求需要揭开神秘面纱，因为它是任何法律体系所固有的。矛盾的是，尽管第 2/13 号意见建议欧盟在加入 ECHR 时应给予特殊待遇，但法院对欧盟法律体系的基本概念本质上是模仿国家法律体系的典型特征。欧盟法律体系的这种模仿性质导致了欧盟的政治和法律性质之间的分离：虽然欧盟当然不是一个国家，但其法律体系与国家法律体系没有区别。