The Sources of Community Law

Abstract

We are concerned in this chapter with identifying the body of legal rules which comprise the sources of Community law and, where this is not already clear from earlier discussion, the origins and authors of these rules. Sources of law are often divided into different categories; for example, there are external sources (international agreements) and internal sources (the founding treaties, Community legislation), as well as primary sources (treaties, general principles of law) and secondary sources (Community legislation). All these categories of sources of law will be considered in this chapter, which also outlines certain basic features of each type of legal rule (e.g. nature and extent of binding force). Discussion in detail of the relationship between Community law and national law is reserved for consideration in Chapter 8.