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Had heard people saying EU Law was hard...

I am studying the LLB Law Degree and I'm going to go into second year next term. Having spoken to many second years, they did say that EU Law was really hard, so I thought I'd so some reading. However, I don't know whether I have chosen the completely wrong book to read from... It's called Understanding the European Union, a concise introduction by John McCormick. This is like the worst book. ever. It gave me a headache :frown: Anyone recommend any good, useful ones that has really helped them please :smile: I would also appreciate anyone who gives me the names of some Commercial Law, Tort Law and Advanced Criminal Law books. Thankyou.
(edited 12 years ago)

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Reply 1
EU law is a massive subject which is why i think people tend to think its difficult to grasp. Also, the recent alteration to the treaty can cause confusion because the treaty article numbers have changed and if you read a pre lisbon treaty book it will give you out of date article numbers. In short, whatever you read make sure it is post lisbon so that you avoid any confusion.

Be careful to make sure you get the basics first otherwise the substance will make little sense. For the basics i started with Unlocking EU law which isnt something i would normally recommend (its an A level book) and then moved on to EU Law (Steiner & Woods). My copy of this book had both pre and post lisbon article numbers (10th ed). For the substance, my bible was The Substantive Law of The EU - the four freedoms - 3rd ed -Catherine Barnard which is post Lisbon. I dont think i would have survived without this book.

Hope that helps
I HATED EU law. I had the OUP Cases and Materials book, though this is some time ago now (2004/5), so i suspect it's moved on a bit. I found it was helpful for explaining how all the case law fitted together, though it did miss out some bits which my lectures had made seem somewhat fundamental.

definitely wasn't my favourite, or strongest, subject...but a necessary evil if you want to practice, unfortunately.
Reply 3
In terms of Tort - Tony Weir's "An Introduction to Tort Law", Clarendon Law Series is a good summer preparatory read. As for criminal, I still go for Smith and Hogan. Some people feel it's not the text it was but IMO it's still hard to beat.
(edited 12 years ago)
Anything that is not hard is hard to get a job in.
Original post by sweetgyal24
I am studying the LLB Law Degree and I'm going to go into second year next term. Having spoken to many second years, they did say that EU Law was really hard, so I thought I'd so some reading. However, I don't know whether I have chosen the completely wrong book to read from... It's called Understanding the European Union, a concise introduction by John McCormick. This is like the worst book. ever. It gave me a headache :frown: Anyone recommend any good, useful ones that has really helped them please :smile: I would also appreciate anyone who gives me the names of some Commercial Law, Tort Law and Advanced Criminal Law books. Thankyou.


I'm surprised by a lot of the responses on here. We took EU in first year and I loved it!

I don't know if it's just taught really well at my university, or the staff were particularly engaging or they dumbed the module down, but I found EU Law the easiest module I took this year. For the first half term, I really struggled to understand the concept of it and really neglected it, but I used reading week to get up to speed with it and it clicked very quickly. In the end I found it very straight forward and not boring at all! I think people can overcomplicate it, it's actually very straight forward when you understand the main reasons FOR EU law and where Union law seems to be going.

To help you, the topics we covered were:

-Supremacy of Union law
-Direct, indirect and horizontal effect of Union law
- Free movement of goods and services
- Free movement of workers
-Citizenship
-Fundamental rights of EU citizens (particularly important since the Charter was given binding effect by the Lisbon Treaty)
-Judicial Review of EU Law (didn't really bother revising that, it was quite boring)
-Member State liability (very easy)

To help me revise, I avoided those nutshell books, but found a kind of nice introductory book called 'Understanding European Union law' by Karen Davies.

I will miss EU law, but I am taking an EU-heavy module next year :biggrin:
EU Law isn't extraordinarily hard - it's just extremely large. Some parts are confusing (citizenship and persons, I am looking at you) but, I mean, so is accessorial liability in criminal law or trying to do an easements question in land. It also doesn't help if you're like me and find it dull :tongue:

Books I used were:

- "Foundations of European Union Law" by Hartley for the constitutional side. Quite dry BUT very authoritative and thorough

- "The Four Freedoms" by Barnard. This is the only text recommended to us for substantive law but it's brilliant: it's clear and concise and has helpful structural diagrams. The only issue I had at all was realising that I disagree with many of the conclusions she comes to but that's from my own perspective rather than her writing and her writing is an excellent summation of some sides of the many debates.

To revise, I also used the Chalmers EU law book as it summed up cases and articles well :smile:
Original post by gethsemane342

To revise, I also used the Chalmers EU law book as it summed up cases and articles well :smile:


Argh, all year I used Chalmers as my EU textbook. When it came to March for revision I switched to De Burca for a different perspective and it really worked - so much better! Chalmers I found had a lot of irrelevant information and De Burca had more cases.
Chalmers European union law is where its at. Du burca is due a new edition i think for the lisbon updates.
Reply 9
Original post by tisjofish
EU law is a massive subject which is why i think people tend to think its difficult to grasp. Also, the recent alteration to the treaty can cause confusion because the treaty article numbers have changed and if you read a pre lisbon treaty book it will give you out of date article numbers. In short, whatever you read make sure it is post lisbon so that you avoid any confusion.

Be careful to make sure you get the basics first otherwise the substance will make little sense. For the basics i started with Unlocking EU law which isnt something i would normally recommend (its an A level book) and then moved on to EU Law (Steiner & Woods). My copy of this book had both pre and post lisbon article numbers (10th ed). For the substance, my bible was The Substantive Law of The EU - the four freedoms - 3rd ed -Catherine Barnard which is post Lisbon. I dont think i would have survived without this book.

Hope that helps


:smile: I have to remember "post Lisbon" then! Thank you so much for all these authors and book names :smile: I will try and get hold of them and get back to you.
Reply 10
Original post by flying plum
I HATED EU law. I had the OUP Cases and Materials book, though this is some time ago now (2004/5), so i suspect it's moved on a bit. I found it was helpful for explaining how all the case law fitted together, though it did miss out some bits which my lectures had made seem somewhat fundamental.

definitely wasn't my favourite, or strongest, subject...but a necessary evil if you want to practice, unfortunately.


Hope I find it ok... Thanks for your advice anyway :smile:
Reply 11
Original post by cliffg
In terms of Tort - Tony Weir's "An Introduction to Tort Law", Clarendon Law Series is a good summer preparatory read. As for criminal, I still go for Smith and Hogan. Some people feel it's not the text it was but IMO it's still hard to beat.


:smile: Yeah, I have Smith and Hogan, and really should read more of it, otherwise it is such a waste of money! Trying not to remember all the other books I bought for my first year, which I am now regretting. I want my £200 and something back lol :tongue:
Reply 12
Original post by goodnightvienna
Anything that is not hard is hard to get a job in.


I just hope I find EU Law ok and not majorly difficult... :smile:
Reply 13
Original post by marrythenight
I'm surprised by a lot of the responses on here. We took EU in first year and I loved it!

I don't know if it's just taught really well at my university, or the staff were particularly engaging or they dumbed the module down, but I found EU Law the easiest module I took this year. For the first half term, I really struggled to understand the concept of it and really neglected it, but I used reading week to get up to speed with it and it clicked very quickly. In the end I found it very straight forward and not boring at all! I think people can overcomplicate it, it's actually very straight forward when you understand the main reasons FOR EU law and where Union law seems to be going.

To help you, the topics we covered were:

-Supremacy of Union law
-Direct, indirect and horizontal effect of Union law
- Free movement of goods and services
- Free movement of workers
-Citizenship
-Fundamental rights of EU citizens (particularly important since the Charter was given binding effect by the Lisbon Treaty)
-Judicial Review of EU Law (didn't really bother revising that, it was quite boring)
-Member State liability (very easy)

To help me revise, I avoided those nutshell books, but found a kind of nice introductory book called 'Understanding European Union law' by Karen Davies.

I will miss EU law, but I am taking an EU-heavy module next year :biggrin:


Your so lucky you got reading week! I still can't get over the fact that we didn't lol. Thank you for these topics, I have a solid ground for more research now :smile: Thanks for the book name, much appreciated! :smile:
Reply 14
Original post by gethsemane342
EU Law isn't extraordinarily hard - it's just extremely large. Some parts are confusing (citizenship and persons, I am looking at you) but, I mean, so is accessorial liability in criminal law or trying to do an easements question in land. It also doesn't help if you're like me and find it dull :tongue:

Books I used were:

- "Foundations of European Union Law" by Hartley for the constitutional side. Quite dry BUT very authoritative and thorough

- "The Four Freedoms" by Barnard. This is the only text recommended to us for substantive law but it's brilliant: it's clear and concise and has helpful structural diagrams. The only issue I had at all was realising that I disagree with many of the conclusions she comes to but that's from my own perspective rather than her writing and her writing is an excellent summation of some sides of the many debates.

To revise, I also used the Chalmers EU law book as it summed up cases and articles well :smile:


Thanks for all these books names and authors! :smile:
I don't think its too bad once you get comfortable with EU law using a continental legal approach and not a common law approach. This is disconcerting for people who are used to studying common law, the approach is more principle-based and less precedent-based and you just don't quite get the level of certainty you get with common law subjects. You need to get comfortable with, for example, the fact that there is simply no way to reconcile the reasoning used in various direct effect cases and need to understand that the EC courts may apply principles in a different manner to different situations. Concepts are phrased in a slightly different way stylistically. Once you appreciate and get used to that it's fine.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 16
Original post by LiveFastDieYoung
Chalmers European union law is where its at. Du burca is due a new edition i think for the lisbon updates.


I will bear that in mind when choosing which books to buy :smile: Thanks.

it gave you a headache because that's just how awful EU law is im afraid
its like admin but worse. give me some nice clean and easy private law (excluding tort) and im happy.

you can keep your legal interventionism vs margin of appreciation garbage! im gonna sit here and play with my doctrine of consideration and trusts of a covenant to settle after acquired property thank you very much!
Original post by marrythenight
Argh, all year I used Chalmers as my EU textbook. When it came to March for revision I switched to De Burca for a different perspective and it really worked - so much better! Chalmers I found had a lot of irrelevant information and De Burca had more cases.


I have an ingrained hatred of Craig and DeBurca after not being able to find it when I was studying consti law and having to spend the evening working to a stupid hour. As a result, I never opened a copy since. You could well be right :smile:

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