Koen Lenaerts

Koen Lenaerts ( born December 20, 1954 in Mortsel ) is a Belgian legal scholar, Professor of European Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and judge at the European Court of Justice.

Career

Lenaerts studied law at the Universities of Namur and Leuven and graduated with honors. In 1978, he earned an LL.M. at Harvard University and 1979 ibid a Master in Public Administration (MPA ). In 1982, he finished at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven successfully his PhD with a thesis on the comparative constitutional case law of the European Court and the Supreme Court of the United States.

From 1984-1989 was Lenaerts professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, from 1988-89 Visiting Professor at Harvard University. From 1989-2003 he was a judge at the European Court of First Instance. In 2003 he was elected judge of the ECJ. Since 1983 he is also professor of European Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is Director of the Institute for European Law. He is also co-editor of numerous jurisprudential journals, such as the European Law Review, Cahiers de droit européen and of the European Constitutional Law Review.

Publications (selection )

• Constitutional Law of the European Union, 2nd edition, London 2005, ISBN 0-421-88610-2 ( with Piet van Nuffel )
• The unity of European law and the overload of the ECJ: the system of preliminary rulings revisited, in: The future of the European judicial system in a comparative perspective, European constitutional law network series, No. 6, 2006, pp. 211-239
• Constitutionalism and the many faces of federalism, in: The rule of law and the separation of powers, 2005, pp. 491-549
• Towards a hierarchy of legal acts in the European Union? Simplification of legal instruments and procedures, in: European law review, 2005, pp. 744-765 ( with Marlies Desomer )