Initiated in the U.S., the ‘Law and literature’ movement is now widely recognised as a new way of addressing the central issues of jurisprudence, philosophy and literary studies. In that respect, reference can be made to the collective book edited by the International Association of Legal Philosophy: Crossing borders : law, language et literature, J. Gaakeer et F. Ost (eds.), Nijmegen, Wolf Legal Publishers, 2008. The SIEJ participates in that movement, which has become one of its main research projects since the publishing of the collective book Lettres et lois. Le droit au miroir de la littérature, Bruxelles, Presses de l’USL-B, 2001, and of the book by François Ost, Raconter la loi. Aux sources de l’imaginaire juridique, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2004.
It has recently given birth to a more specific project called Europe’s judicial narratives, which lies at the crossroads of legal and political science and involves a dozen of researchers from Belgian and French universities. It purports to unveil the representations of European integration conveyed by the European Court of Justice’s case-law (more specifically their genesis, their content, their legitimacy and their effectiveness). The preliminary results of this research can be found in A. Bailleux, E. Bernard, S. Jacquot (eds), Les récits judiciaires de l’Europe. Concepts et typologie, Brussels, Bruylant, 2019.