Resumen de Legal Integration in the Andes: Law-Making by the Andean Tribunal of Justice

Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer

• The Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ) is a copy of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and the third most active international court. This paper reviews our findings based on an original coding of all ATJ preliminary rulings from 1984 to 2007, and over 40 interviews in the region. We then compare Andean and European jurisprudence in three key areas: whether the Tribunals treat the founding integration treaties as constitutions for their respective communities, whether the ATJ and ECJ have implied powers for community institutions that are not expressly enumerated in the founding treaties and how the Tribunals conceive of the relationship between community law and other international agreements that are binding on the Member States.