Graham Butler

Full Professor of Law, Linnaeus University, Sweden.

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

📄 New article

"Legal Basis of EU Legal Acts: Choice, Doctrine, and Practice"

in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies (@EULegalStudies @CUP_Law).

There is a quiet shift ongoing in EU constitutional law, and it ought to be better known.

🔗 https://t.co/lbOobFisSa

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

To outsiders in America and beyond, big-state libertarianism can be puzzling. To Swedes there is no contradiction: they just want to be left alone, and to do it together https://t.co/6A8u4E16cG

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

📄 New article

"When Public Authorities Do Not Decide: On the Need for a Failure to Act Procedure in Swedish Administrative Law" in Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift

⚖️ A court can order a public authority to decide. But if it simply doesn't? What then?

🔓 https://t.co/vpYveoOC26

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

'The Generals', edited by @IainDale, is out now.

It features a contribution from me on Charlemagne, from another time in European history.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton/Hachette (https://t.co/gbfn7DgkfE), distributed worldwide.

[Iain Dale 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 ⚒️ @IainDale]

It's Publication Day for my latest edited book of essays, THE GENERALS, published by Hodder & Stoughton. It covers 69 Generals from Sun Tzu through to David Petraeus. Thanks to all who contributed. I'm very proud of it.

Buy a signed copy
https://t.co/3Gyqkc6Q3V

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

New book 📘

Micro-states of Europe and their Legal Relations with the European Union (2026)

Andorra 🇦🇩 Monaco 🇲🇨 San Marino 🇸🇲 and the Vatican City State 🇻🇦 across EU constitutional, internal market, institutional, and external relations law

🔗 https://t.co/msndKfSKwh

#EUlaw

[Fair Transition Sweden @fairtransition_]

Sweden has no constitutional court. What it has is a duty in regeringsformen for courts not to apply laws that conflict with higher norms.

When the legislative process erodes, that duty becomes more visible and more demanding. Judges will need to be prepared to find, and to state, that a given application of a law cannot be reconciled with the constitution.

The citizenship reform belongs in this picture.

https://t.co/9KOaiQJcYW

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

New chapter 📕 examining how the Court of Justice of the European Union decides not to decide cases.

I argue that it does so through procedural control, narrow rulings, and related techniques.

🏛️🇪🇺

URL: https://t.co/aZqzDWAm9c

(eds: L. Lonardo & A. Loxa)

#EUlaw #CJEU

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

Is there a political question doctrine in EU law? The CJEU long took no position.

No more! It has now discovered it.

By me: 'From Search to Discovery of the Political Question Doctrine in EU Law' in European Law Review, 2025, 50(6), pp. 761-774.

URL: https://t.co/Rjpdlb0yPy

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

So you want to stand for election?

For European Parliament elections, AG Ćapeta says in Case C-438/24, Erakond Eestimaa Rohelised that election deposits to be made, whilst permissible, must not be excessively high.

Her Opinion: https://t.co/j6QQMYAGnI

#EUlaw #CJEU

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

@EUCourtPress Not true.

There has been four Opinions of judges in the General Court (then, CFI) previously, 1991-1992.

See the chapter by Judge Edward, reflecting on his Opinion in Automec/Asia Motor France: https://t.co/KZGwm3XbjC

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

A first in more than 33 years today.

Today, a GC judge acting as an Advocate General, delivered an Opinion. Case T-575/24, Digipolis: https://t.co/CS5R0WDkSt

The last time this happened, was March 1992 in cases T-24/90 and T-28/90, Automec/Asia Motor: https://t.co/GroRjrFIe8

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

New book, now published.

The EU Law of Investment: Past, Present, and Future (Hart Publishing/Bloomsbury, 2025), edited by Xavier Groussot, Marja-Liisa Öberg, and Graham Butler.

Hardback, here: https://t.co/3cmFqag6yQ

Full open access, here: https://t.co/JkbY2nFVC7

#EUlaw

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

Appeals brought by Member States against General Court judgments to the Court of Justice under Article 56 of CJEU Statute.

Case C-728/23 P.

Nice to see both a book I co-edited and an article I authored cited in the Opinion of the Advocate General today.

https://t.co/LrJ27Sxs3s

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

This week in Copenhagen.

Meeting of the Agents (of the Member States) before the @EUCourtPress ⚖️ at the @DanishMFA 🇩🇰🇪🇺

#EUlaw #CJEU

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

Vacancy:

Doctoral Fellowship in European Law, Linnaeus University, Sweden.

📅 Apps: by 1 Nov '25.
💡 On offer: 4-year full-time salaried position.
💭 Interest in: Competition, data protection, privacy law.

👉 Job ID: HR-2025/1249:

🔗 EN: https://t.co/hmsOu4sVeM

#EUlaw

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

Can the 🇪🇺 High Representative be in CJEU proceedings ⚖️ in their individual capacity (i.e., not as Comm VP, Head of the EEAS, other hats)?

Evidently, yes, though with nuances as intervener, applicant, and defendant.

My contribution in a new Festschrift: https://t.co/T69fexL1nV

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

@GAVClaw 10/10 on the title.

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

Is the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) leaning too heavily on 'solidarity' in its rulings?

I argue yes, and that is problematic as a matter of legal reasoning.

The full article is in current issue of the Maastricht Journal (MJ):

https://t.co/X5hktQdDt9

[Graham Butler @GrahamButler1]

New book out now.

Research Handbook on EEA Internal Market Law, edited by one, but written by many.

Focusing on the internal market aspects of the EFTA pillar of the EEA.

Available in hardback: https://t.co/QioC0tGKFg

Available online: https://t.co/VVclnB0GAv

#EUlaw #EEAlaw

[Elgar Law @Elgar_Law]

🆕 Research Handbook on EEA Internal Market Law
edited by @GrahamButler1
Contributors include experts from @EFTA_Court and @eftasurv

More info ➡️ https://t.co/V1IdgdjANm

🆓 chapter | The EEA Agreement: on 30 years of an extended internal market ➡️ https://t.co/B1WDWXndeZ