Of courts and commerce

Courts often interpret and attempt to enforce rules designed to economically integrate federal and international organizations. In this article, we investigate to what degree court rulings can liberalize trade by examining data from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Studying the ECJ allows us to compare the Court's effectiveness through two different mechanisms: infringement proceedings, which are purely a form of international adjudication, and preliminary references, which are applied through national courts. We find infringement rulings have no effect on a nation's intra-EU imports, while preliminary rulings have a positive, though temporary, effect on a nation's intra-EU imports.