European Legal Education or Legal Education in Europe
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Aalt Willem Heringa |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X1101800301 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
18 MJ 3 (2011) 221
eDItoRIAL
eURoPeAn LeGAL eDUCAtIon oR
LeGAL eDUCAtIon In eURoPe
A W H*
For my rst year students, and for prospective students, I once set up a quiz: which areas
are covered or regulated by law: or maybe even better, which domains are NOT regulated
by man-made laws. e outcome of this exercise was i nvariably that students st arted to
discover ver y early on how much law there actual ly is. A variation of this quiz is how
much European law there act ually is, or which legal domains have NOT been aected
by European rule s. To be precise, I tend to refer to hard core European law: regulations,
directives, decisions, cour t cases, as well a s to the domains of soer European impact
– through comparative law and meeti ngs of experts, civ il servants a nd others. A prime
example i n that respect is European contract law: the Dra Code as published by the
European Commis sion i n May 2011; or the development or discovery of common
(constitutional) principles, and the reliance by domestic courts, t he Luxembourg Courts
and the Str asbourg Cour t of Human Rights, upon common principles and common
practices.
I am not (yet) implyi ng that what we might call European law in this broad sense i s
similar to what in some domestic legal systems has developed over the past two centuries
as major codications of private law, administr ative law, crimina l law, labour law and so
on. But ignoring the unmistakable trend of the expansion of European law, including the
harmonization t hrough comparative law and exchanges and consultat ions, would be an
error. e question then arises how law schools in Europe deal with this t rend and tr y to
encapsulate it in their legal curr icula. Also what would be the best way forward for these
schools? Related to this, ought t here to be a concerte d European eort, in consultation
with the European C ommission and stakeholders such as the European Bar Associ ation
to further, establish or promote a fut ure oriented by truly European legal education?
For many decades now, legal education has b een a purely domestic aair: students
are t rained in the laws and doctrines of their national lega l system. What that entails
is settled by the legislat ure and/or by the national bar associations. e language
of instruc tion is the national la nguage(s). e development of Eu ropean law (and
* Professor of Comparative Const itutional and Adminis trative Law; former Dean of the Faculty of
Law, Maastricht University (ww w.maastrichtunive rsity.nl/law); Vice-President of the Internationa l
Association of L aw Schools (IALS); Academi c Director Maastr icht University Campus Bru ssels.
E-mail: aw.heri nga@maastrichtu niversity.nl.
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