European Union Law – Global Legal Collection Highlights

The following is a guest post by Theresa Papademetriou who is the Law Library of Congress Senior Foreign Law Specialist for the European Union, Greece, and Cyprus. Theresa has previously blogged on “European Union: Where is the Beef?“, on “New Greek Regulation Designed to Fight Tax Evasion Problem: Will it Work?” and on “The Cyprus Banking Crisis and its Aftermath: Bank Depositors be Aware“.

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union. It has grown significantly since the establishment of its founding treaties. These treaties are the 1951 European Coal and Steel Community, the 1957 European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), and the European Economic Community (EEC) of the same year. The EEC later became European Community (EC) which was succeeded by the EU.   

Currently the EU includes 28 Member States and has approximately 500 million people. As of July 1, 2013 Croatia became the newest country to join the EU.

The Library of Congress EU collection is vast. It reflects the growing significance of the EU as a global actor and as a major trading partner of  the United States. The Library is a repository of certain EU publications, including the Official Journal of the EU. Materials on the EU are acquired either through purchase from abroad or through mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States.

In researching the EU law collection, one will notice that the majority of the materials on the EU are published in Europe.  There is a small number of very interesting books, however, that are written and published in the United States. Some of them focus exclusively on providing a basic introduction to the EU institutions, its policies and its legislative-making mechanism.  Such materials are geared towards students and those who want to acquaint themselves with EU functions and policies. Other publications provide in-depth coverage of specialized topics, such as the effect of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty on EU institutions, or the EU’s approach to terrorism post 9/11.  Finally, a third category of materials deals with implications and issues arising from the ongoing financial crisis in the EU and its effect on the euro-zone members.

The following books deal with the ABC’s of EU law:

• Andreas Staab, The European Union Explained: Institutions, Actors and Global Impact (2011);
• Ralph H. Folsom,  European Union in a Nutshell (2011) ;
• Mark Gilbert, European Integration: A Concise History (2012);
• George A. Berman, Cases and Materials on European Union Law (2011).

Books on specific topics include:

• John J. A. Burke, The New Europe: The Impact of the LisbonTreaty (2010);
•  Roy Ginsberg and Susan E. Peska, The  European Union in Global Security: The Politics of Impact (2012);
• Bossong Raphael, The Evolution of EU Counter-terrorism: European Security Policy After 9/11.

… and last but not least, books on the euro:

• Harold James, Making the European MonetaryUnion  (2012);
• Carlo Bastasin, Saving Europe: How National Politics nearly Destroyed the EURO (2012);
• Dimitri Chorafas, Breaking Up the Euro: The end of a Common Currency (2013).

I hope the information provided in this blog post is helpful.