The great success of European integration is mostly due to some basic, but essential, principles that the European Court of Justice has been establishing during the last 50 years—direct effect, primacy, direct applicability, human rights' doctrine, damages by MS for infringement of EC law, free circulation principles—and that conforms the EC legal order, an autonomous and independent legal order, from the ones of 27 Member States to an integrated European Union. We will study each of these basic principles and doctrines of the European Court of Justice through the analysis and discussion of the leading cases that form part of its case law and that have permitted not only the creation of a more integrated Europe but also the transformation of what it could have been, a mere international organization, into a "transnational" organization where Member States cede some of their sovereign powers to the Community and European citizens have not only obligations but real rights that can be enforced before the courts.
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