11
Introduction générale
General introduction
Revisiting
Van Gend en Loos
:
Subjectifying and Objectifying
the Individual
Joseph H. H. Weiler
President, European University Institute, FLORENCE
I. The Promise of
Van Gend en Loos
I feel comfortable in saying that in the annals of judicial decisions of
international courts and tribunals none comes even close to
Van Gend en Loos
in its profound systemic and conceptual impact.
Van Gend en Loos
did not
only shape the legal order; it constituted that order.
In the first part of these remarks I want to reexamine that systemic and
conceptual genesis and impact. In the second part I want to articulate some of
the challenges it posed and continues to pose. Every bright moon has its dark
side too.
With the perspective of time we can begin by clarifying some common-
place misconceptions.
To say that
Van Gend en Loos
introduced the doctrine of Direct Effect to
the Community (as it was known then) legal order does not even begin to
capture the source of its profound impact. As has been pointed out by many –
from the doctrinal ‘Direct Effect’ perspective, it may have been something of
a stretch to speak of a ‘New Legal Order’. Neither Direct Effect nor Supremacy
are, or were at the time, innovative doctrines under international law.
