by Jeanine

Created on: August 06, 2008

The European Court of Justice is an integral part of the European Union, contributing to the deepening of integration among member states. The ECJ is an important agent of the integration project within Europe. There has been a question brought up many times, regarding the extent of the autonomy of ECJ, questioning how much sovereignty member states will experience. The integration of law within the EU represents the deepening of the integration process. This means that the ECJ may become a very powerful agent because it controls the right to take away the power of local courts, implementing laws and policies that must be followed.

The European Court of Justice is an important and very integral agent in European integration. The ECJ holds the right to overrule and national laws of its 25 member states. This allows the ECJ to be a very powerful weapon, affecting the lives of millions of people. When the Commission handed over the right to implement a common criminal criteria for environmental crimes a very powerful weapon emerged. This gives the ECJ the ability to control all environmental laws of all member states; the question is how far they will stretch this right. After the report was released, criminal activity not considered to be environmental was included, for example computer hacking. This is a huge step for the ECJ because of the deepening of the integration process which results from this increase in power. This also widens the scope of EU powers, giving the ECJ the ability to set punishment for environmental problems which could be unique to one area of the EU, and not in another. This once again challenges the problem of integration because the ECJ holds a vast amount of power, and will continue to push its boundaries.

The ECJ contributes to the political integration of the European Union by holding immense power over the member states and their regional governments. It has become an important agent of integration because it controls the retaliation of criminals from all 25 of the member states. The ECJ holds the ability to control society how the union would like it to be controlled. This creates an international criminal code, with its long arm reaching into the lives of millions of people. The ECJ has proven to be an important agent because by controlling environmental crimes, as well as other complete sectors of the law, they hold the power to shape society. Examples of other cases where the ECJ has become a powerful agent are, water pollution

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