The Constitutionalization of the Community Legal Order

Abstract

When the representatives of the member states appended their signatures to the Treaty of Paris on 18 April 1951, they were undoubtedly aware of the importance, not least of which was symbolic, of the act. Were they not, as the preamble of the treaty stated, affirming that the creation of the Coal and Steel Community, the first of the Communities, represented the basis ‘for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflict’? And yet, for the jurist, this revolutionary political development took the rather banal legal form of an international treaty. Clearly, the treaty’s content was highly innovative since it eroded, sometimes considerably, national sovereignty. However, its closest resemblance was to a classic international treaty model. Moreover, the treaty was concluded for a period of 50 years, a good indicator that it was not intended to deviate too much from the traditional framework of inter-state relations.