The ontological, terminological and conceptual confusion that surrounds the concept of ‘general principles of European Union law’ is far from being resolved. The constitutional interlocutors—the Court of Justice of the European Union and the highest courts in Member States—have at times fiercely argued about their different understanding of general principles, whereas European legal scholarship has failed to convincingly clarify the intricacies surrounding this source of law. Instead of engaging with a more abstract, theoretical question of what general principles are, this paper reflects on the practical, functionalist question: how are they used by the Court of Justice and what are some of their functions and implications? To do so, it enquires into contextual, institutional and strategic features of the Court's behaviour and jurisprudence and responses of the highest national judiciaries to this jurisprudence. The aim is to offer an alternative account of the Court's jurisprudence on general principles

中文翻译：

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法庭游戏：原则和制度的故事

围绕“欧盟法律一般原则”概念的本体论、术语和概念混淆远未得到解决。宪法对话者——欧盟法院和成员国的最高法院——有时会激烈争论他们对一般原则的不同理解，而欧洲法律学术未能令人信服地澄清围绕这一法律渊源的错综复杂。本文没有涉及一般原则是什么的更抽象的理论问题，而是反映了实用的功能主义问题：法院如何使用它们以及它们的一些功能和含义是什么？为此，它探究了法院的背景、体制和战略特征” 的行为和判例以及最高国家司法机关对这一判例的反应。目的是为法院关于一般原则的判例提供另一种解释