EUROPEAN COMPARATIVE LAW: Reasons for “Enhanced Comparison” and Role of the CJEU

This paper offers a critical reconstruction of the conceptual and comparative assessment of European Law, while putting forward two novel ideas. On the one hand, the author elaborates upon the existence of an ‘inner core’ within the European legal space which is distinctively prone to successful and methodologically sound comparison, providing a threefold justification of her reasoning. Such justification is based on the unique normative and institutional framework, on the overlap of interconnections between the coexisting legal systems and on the evolution of the methodology in European scholarship. On the other hand, the author focuses on the role of the CJEU, departing from previous studies on the use of comparative law and proposing a new approach to case selection and application of legal comparison.