The History of European Union Law - Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993: CELS Lunchtime Seminar

Cambridge Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) Podcast

Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

Business, Society & Culture, Education

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🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Speaker: Professor Morten Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen

Biography: Morten Rasmussen is Associate Professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen and a leading expert on the legal histories of European integration and the League of Nations. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. The most recent publication is a general history of early period of European Union Law from 1950 to 1993. He is currently co-editing a Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and international law.

Abstract: Professor Rasmussen will present on his forthcoming publication 'The History of European Union Law - Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993'. The formative period of EU law witnessed an intense struggle over the emergence of a constitutional practice. While the supranational institutions, including the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, as well as EU law academics helped to develop and promote the constitutional practice, member state governments and judiciaries were generally reluctant to embrace it. The struggle resulted in an uneasy stalemate in which the constitutional practice was allowed to influence the doctrines, shape and functioning of the European legal order that now underpins the EU, but a majority of member state governments rejected European constitutionalism as the legitimating principle of the new EU formed on basis of the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). The lecture traces the struggle and accounts for eventual stalemate over the constitutional practice and the fragile and partial system of rule of law that exists in the EU today.

For more information see:

https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. It's a distinct pleasure and delight to welcome Morton
0:08.7	Rasmussen to the faculty and for him to give us a talk on the history of the European Union
0:15.7	constitutional practice 1950 to 1993. And in reflecting a little bit on the theme of history, a quote from
0:26.9	C.S. Lewis came to mind, where he said that since we cannot step outside our own age,
0:35.0	and since we cannot study the future, the only way to gain perspective on the
0:40.7	presence is to study the past. And so I think it's a fantastic opportunity to gain this perspective
0:48.1	through the illuminating insights we are about to hear. And by way of background,
1:00.0	Morton is an associate professor at the Saxo Institute, at the University of Copenhagen.
1:03.0	He is a leading expert on the legal histories of European integration
1:09.0	and the League of Nations.
1:12.5	He has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics,
1:17.3	and indeed what he will be presenting on is, as I understand, also the most recent publication.
1:24.1	And finally, he is a co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of the League of Nations and International Law.
1:32.6	So with that, I hand over to you.
1:35.0	Thank you very much.
1:36.9	So thank you so much for your kind introduction.
1:39.1	And also, it really is an honor and privilege to be invited into this wonderful series that you have with different speakers on EU law.
1:50.2	And of course, it's a particular joy to be able to inject a little bit of history into that series.
1:57.8	So, I will be talking a little bit about this new book, The History of European Law,
2:05.6	1950 to 1993, that focus on constitutional practice, and that will come out with Cambridge University Press
2:13.6	in early March. So, of course, it makes it even more pleasurable to be here in Cambridge to talk about this book.
2:22.2	And this is the first book that is based on extensive archival research that explores the history of European law from 1950 to 1993.
	...

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