EU Law in U.S. Legal Academia

Abstract

The history of EU law in the J.D. curriculum is a classical tale of rise and fall. An avantgarde,
boutique offering in the 1970s, and a fairly popular course in the 1990s, today EU law in
U.S. law schools is slowly losing prominence. This Article begins by tracking this parabolic
trajectory, and argues that the discipline both rose and fell for contingent reasons that are mostly
unrelated to its pedagogical and analytical significance. The Article then provides a critical
appraisal of what EU law is uniquely poised to offer, both in the classroom and as a subject for
legal scholarship. An illustration based on French experiences of Europeanization supports the
claim that EU law, as an autonomous subject, can still make an original and nonfungible
contribution to U.S. legal academia.