International Judicial Monitor
Published by the International Judicial Academy, Washington, D.C., with assistance from the
American Society of International Law

Spring 2011 Issue
 

Justice In Profile

Koen Lenaerts, Judge of the European Court of Justice

Koen LenaertsBy: Carolyn A. Dubay, Associate Editor, International Judicial Monitor

Koen Lenaerts has served as a distinguished Judge of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) since 2003.  The ECJ, based in Luxembourg, is the European court with authoritative jurisdiction to interpret EU law to ensure it is applied in a uniform manner in all EU member states.  In achieving this mandate, the ECJ has the power to settle legal disputes between EU member states, EU institutions, businesses and individuals.  Moreover, any national court or tribunal of a member state hearing a dispute involving EU law must in certain circumstances submit questions to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling.  The ECJ is composed of 27 judges, each representing a member state of the European Union.  Judge Lenaerts is the Belgian representative on the ECJ and currently presides as President of its Third Chamber.  Judge Lenaerts’s service on the ECJ follows more than thirteen years as a judge of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities.  Earlier in his career, Judge Lenaerts also served as law clerk to Judge René Joliet at the ECJ, followed by several years of practice as a Member of the Brussels Bar representing the Belgian state before the Court. 

In addition to his career as a leading European jurist, Judge Lenaerts also has excelled in academia and has made significant contributions to scholarship relating to EU law.  Since 1983, Judge Lenaerts has served on the faculty of law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in Belgium as a professor of European law and is currently the director of the Institute of European Law.  During this time, he has also held a number of visiting professorship and scholarly positions, including posts at Harvard Law School, the College of Europe in Bruges, and the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute in Florence.  His scholarly work has produced many leading publications on EU law, with a particular focus on the procedural and constitutional law of the European Union.  His list of publications, including books, book chapters, law journal articles and other publications in Dutch, French and English, is extensive and reflects his expertise in all areas of EU law. 

In recognition of Judge Lenaerts’s extraordinary contributions as a scholar and jurist, he has received numerous academic distinctions, fellowships and prizes from within the European legal community and abroad.  In Europe, he has been an Honorary C.B.R. Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (1977-1979), a Fellow of the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch-Dienst (1979), a Member of the Academia Europaea (since 1988), the Belgian Francqui Chair at the University of Antwerp (1998) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2000), as well as the Chair at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2003-2004).  In the United States, he has served as a Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth Fund of New York (1977-1979) and as a Distinguished Helen DeRoy Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School (2005).

Among his many other prestigious appointments, Judge Lenaerts has also been a member of the editorial boards of the European Law Review, the Cahiers de Droit européen, and the S.E.W. Tijdschrift voor Europees en economisch recht.  Judge Lenaerts has also served as a member of many advisory boards to leading legal journals, including but not limited to the Journal des Tribunaux – Droit européen, the Columbia Journal of European Law, the World Competition Law and Economics Review, and the European Constitutional Law Review.  He has further served as a trustee at the Academy of European Law in Trier, the Centre of Law and Governance in Europe at University College London, and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.   

Born in 1954 in Belgium, Judge Lenaerts earned his undergraduate law degree summa cum laude from the University of Namur in 1974, and in 1977, he graduated summa cum laude as a licentiate in law from KUL, with special congratulations of the Jury.  He then went on to receive his Master of Laws (LLM) and Master in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University.  Returning to Belgium, Judge Lenaerts then obtained a Ph.D. in Law 1982 at KUL.  His doctorate research produced a dissertation comparing constitutional decision-making at the European Court of Justice and the United States Supreme Court.  His doctoral dissertation also earned him the Prize of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences and the Prize Fernand Collin of the “Fondation universitaire” in Belgium. 

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ASIl & International Judicial AcademyInternational Judicial Monitor
© 2011 – The International Judicial Academy
with assistance from the American Society of International Law.

Editor: James G. Apple.
IJM welcomes comments, suggestions, and submissions.
Please contact the IJM editor at ijaworld@verizon.net.