EC and EEA Law; A Comparative Study of the Effectiveness of European Law

Author M. Elvira Méndez-Pinedo Publication September 2009 Binding paperback, 341p ISBN 978-90-8952-066-1 Price €42, $72

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About the book

The effectiveness of European Community law is probably the most distinguishing feature of this unique legal order in contrast with classic international law. By contrast, the effectiveness of European Economic Area law (EEA Law), the way this other even more sui generis legal system provides comparable rights for EFTA-EEA citizens, is a silent revolution brought by the EFTA Court that has not been properly researched and exposed in the field of European law.
This book addresses first the relationship between Community law and national systems following the doctrine of the effet utile or effectiveness as established by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).   
The main contribution of the book is to describe how the EFTA Court has managed, in its fifteen years of existence, to assure the same effectiveness of EEA law in this parallel legal order. 
The book summarizes and explain the basic principles governing the relationship between EEA law and the national legal systems while searching for similarities and differences with EC law. These questions are explored from a European perspective in order to help students, scholars, practitioners and other professionals understand the effectiveness of European law, the special relationship between the Community/EEA legal orders with the national legal systems when the enforcement of European rights and the judicial protection of individuals are at stake.

About the author

M. Elvira Méndez-Pinedo is Associate Professor of European Law (EC and EEA law) at the Law Faculty of the University of Iceland where she has the general supervision of this area of law, teaching both at graduate and post-graduate levels and doing academic research. Graduated in Law at the University Complutense of Madrid, she holds a Masters Degree or Diplome d´Études Approfondies in Community law from Paris II- Assas University and a Doctoral Degree in European Law from the University of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). Originally from Spain, for personal reasons she moved to Iceland in 2001 and, after some years of intensive Icelandic study of this difficult language, she joined the Faculty of Law as an Assistant Professor in 2007.

She has written different articles on Community/EEA law and is the author of two other books on European Consumer Law. Her research in the field of European consumer procedural law was awarded with three prizes in Spain and brought her to work as a legal expert for the European Commission in the field of consumer protection and public health. She has extensive experience as a lawyer working for different institutions and firms in Europe and in the USA and she has served, inter alia, as Head of Sector – Consolidation of European legislation within the Official Journal of the European Union in Luxembourg.

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