The Dawn of the Community System of Judicial Protection: Revisiting the First Two Rulings of the European Court of Justice, 70 Years On

This Long Read revisits the first two judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Coal and Steel Community, delivered on 21 December 1954 in France v. High Authority and Italy v. High Authority. The article reconstructs the procedural, institutional, and historical context of those rulings, concerning the publication of steel price lists under Article 60 of the ECSC Treaty, and highlights the roles of figures such as Jean Monnet, Paul Reuter, Maurice Lagrange, Massimo Pilotti, Riccardo Monaco, and Jean Coutard. It argues that, although the judgments had a limited economic impact on the ECSC common market, they marked a decisive step in the emergence of supranational adjudication and laid the foundations for the Community system of judicial protection.