Working Paper No. 03-2020

May 2020

The Court of Justice of the European Union has an undiscussed role in shaping EU Governance. Evidence-based policy has grown crucial to inform worldwide governance, and therefore demand for empirical studies is raising. However, empirical methods applied to legal reasoning are challenging, for the inherent nuanced nature of this subject-matter. In 2015, the author of this paper, together with her colleagues, undertook the study of the Court and its rulings, to assess its role in shaping European copyright law. This was performed by implementing on this interesting area of studies an empirical approach never attempted before. This paper illustrates the empirical research path that the author has undertaken on the functioning of the European Court of Justice (the higher Court of the CJEU) by taking Copyright Jurisprudence as a case study, with all the attached challenge and potential of this approach.

Keywords: CJEU; European Court of Justice; Copyright; Empirical studies; EU Governance.

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