Julie Bailleux
The aim of this article is to question whether European Community law – as the legal framework for apprehending and legitimizing European integration – is “natural” by examining the period of its inception. By analyzing the first International Study Conference on the ECSC held in 1957 and the ensuing exchanges between policymakers and law professors, the author seeks, on the one hand, to bring to light the role European political institutions played in constructing an autonomous European juridical doctrine and, on the other, to highlight the limitations encountered in the use of law to legitimize a political project. Finally, this article points up the political and cognitive difficulties involved in the invention of a truly supranational law.