General principles of law: treaty, historical, and normative foundations

This chapter considers three foundational issues concerning general principles of law. The first relates to the textual provenance of general principles within the constituent Treaties. The second is the historical development of general principles within the emerging Community legal order. There is much here that is imperfectly understood, and it is necessary to trace the origins back to the ECSC Treaty. The third foundational issue is normative in nature and concerns the formal and substantive legitimacy of general principles of law within the EU legal order.