Open Access
Text, Cases & Materials
Although there is no shortage of good books on European Integration, the market for good teaching materials is actually not in great shape. On the one hand, students and younger practitioners may need three volumes to acquire a solid foundation in European Union law, a textbook, a casebook with the decisions of the European Court of Justice and some of the national (supreme) courts, and a collection of treaties, regulations, directives, and other documents. The cost of such a package will be a deterrent outside of specialized Master programs like the one offered by the College of Europe in Bruges. And the quantity of material, with little guidance on how it may be pared down for shorter and more basic courses, will be another challenge for anyone who does not have the luxury of dedicating a lot of time to the subject.
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The problem is exacerbated by the fact that European integration remains a fast-moving target. Although we don't see as many treaty changes these days as we experienced from 1999 to 2009, every year there are numerous changes or even entirely new versions of important regulations, directives, and other EU documents. Sure, all of those are theoretically available free of charge from the website of the EU. However, finding the trees in the forest of that website is a challenge even for experienced researchers, the documents are poorly edited, even the main treaties still don't have article headlines, and students cannot easily underline, highlight, and make notes and cross-refences in those documents and keep them for professional use.
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Furthermore, even if good books are available, like Goebel, Fox, Bermann, Atik, Emmert, and Gerard's Cases and Materials on European Union Law, or Craig and de Búrca's EU Law - Text, Cases, and Materials, they are expensive, in particular for students and young professionals, or even hard to get, if potential readers are not based in the EU or North America.
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The Council on International Law and Politics is going to develop open access teaching materials to address these issues and make good quality and flexible texts available for free. The material will be expanded gradually and updated frequently. Feedback from users - instructors as well as the students themselves - is very much encouraged and should help us to meet currently unmet needs in the market.
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