Kahn in Luxembourg: A Prolegomena to the Cultural Study of EU Law

In the context of growing anxieties regarding the place and role of law in the future of the Europe Union (EU), this article reflects upon the extent to which Paul Kahn’s cultural study of law’s rule could be relevant for the place and role of EU law in these respects. Drawing upon Kahn’s monograph Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion, this article analyses the Laval judgment for these purposes, as one of the most controversial cases ever decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). On this basis, the article shows how the cultural analysis of law advanced by Kahn can help us to sharpen our sensibilities with regard to the deeper layers of moral and political meaning that EU law expounds and to thereby enable us to expand our horizons as well as conversations on the socio-political and economic composition of EU law. Yet this article also raises skepticism about the cultural study of EU law’s rule. Given the diverse cultural idiosyncrasies and traditions by which citizens of EU Member States live, it questions whether EU law can be assessed from the point of view of a collective identity believed to best persuade EU citizens of the authority of EU law.