Legislation and case law

The European Union (EU) has a legal system and law of its own - the main rules and principles are laid down in the founding Treaties. The EU can adopt legal and legislative acts, which the Member States have to respect and to apply.

Each Member State of the European Union (EU) has its own law and legal system. Member State (MS) law can comprise both law at the national level (or national law, which is valid anywhere in a certain Member State) and laws which are only applicable in a certain area, region, or city.

International law is a body of rules recognised by states or nations as binding upon their mutual relations, including their relations with international organisations. International law is usually incorporated in agreements between sovereign states, and/or derived from such agreements.

Information on the publishing of official announcements online by EU countries

A tool offering easy access to the national rules transforming the key EU consumer directives in EU countries.

This section provides a brief overview of existing glossaries and multilingual "thesaurus" at European level.

While European Union (EU) law is to be applied by any court of the Member States (be it a national, regional or local court), the European Court of Justice ensures that  the interpretation and application of EU law is observed and interpreted in the same way in all Member States. Thus, the EU case law is mainly developed by the European Court of Justice.

The European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) has been developed to facilitate the correct and unequivocal citation of judgments from European and national courts. A set of uniform metadata will help to improve search facilities for case law.

Welcome to the ECLI search engine of the European e-Justice Portal. This function allows you to search for legal decisions/judgements with an assigned ECLI.

General information and terms and conditions

Search case law pertaining to freedom of movement and other EU citizen's rights

The courts of the Member States of the European Union (EU) apply and interpret the law of the relevant Member States as well as EU law. Therefore, it is in the interest of citizens and legal practitioners to have access not only to case law of their own Member State, but also to that of other EU Member States.

The international community has established a number of courts for solving disputes regarding international law. Their legal nature varies and the scope of jurisdiction and binding effect of their case law largely depends on the relevant founding act.