caa a22 4500 388051299 CHVBK 20180307125054.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130s1998 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1162/002081898550572 doi S002081839844030X pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1162/002081898550572 Alter Karen J. Who Are the "Masters of the Treaty”?: European Governments and the European Court of Justice [Elektronische Daten] [Karen J. Alter] To what extent can the European Court of Justice, an international court, make decisions that go against the interests of European Union member states? Neofunctionalist accounts imply that because the Court is a legal body it has vast political autonomy from the member states, whereas neorealist accounts imply that because member states can sanction the ECJ, the Court has no significant political autonomy. Neither theory can explain why the Court, which was once politically weak and did not stray far from the interests of European governments, now boldly rules against their interests. In explaining how the Court escaped member state control, this article develops a general hypothesis of the autonomy of the ECJ, focusing on how differing time horizons of political and judicial actors, support for the Court within the national judiciaries, and decision-making rules at the supranational level limit the member states' ability to control the Court. Copyright © The IO Foundation 1998 International Organization Cambridge University Press 52/1(1998), 121-147 0020-8183 52:1<121 1998 52 INO https://doi.org/10.1162/002081898550572 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1162/002081898550572 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Alter Karen J. NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- International Organization Cambridge University Press 52/1(1998), 121-147 0020-8183 52:1<121 1998 52 INO CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge