The Eu's Evolving Civil Justice Arena: Policy Coordination and Its Impact on Administrative Structures in the EU and Its Member States

The EU has adopted a large number of hard and soft legal measures in the civil justice arena since the creation on the AFSJ in 1999.  These (often technical) measures have more or less effect in practice, depending on a range of factors that characterize the national legal environments.  This variation has induced the Commission to push for greater uniformity in the administration of justice in the member states.  My paper for the conference would map some sources of member state variation, and explore the mechanisms by which legal harmonization generates administrative convergence in the justice policy field. In addition, my paper would examine how recent changes in the EU institutional environment in the AFSJ, as well as in the articulated policy and processes by which policy is articulated, are shaping the transformation of civil justice in the EU.