Guido Bellenghi presents his latest article on emergency and the EU Court of Justice

On 18 November 2025, EmergEU’s researcher Guido Bellenghi presented his latest article in the context of the November Forum organised by the Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL). The paper, titled ‘Emergency in the Legal Reasoning of the Court of Justice of the European Union’, is forthcoming in the Nordic Journal of European Law. Professor Bruno de Witte acted as discussant.

The article examines whether and how argumentation based on the occurrence of an emergency impacts the legal reasoning of the Court of Justice. In doing so, it analyses the likelihood of success before the Court of three specific lines of argumentation. The article argues that the Court is unlikely to treat emergency as an autonomous ground for derogation; however, emergency-based arguments may play an important role in the interpretation of existing norms and in the application of the precautionary principle.