For over 30 years the French Conseil d'Etat has maintained that it is impossible to rely on EC Directives before French administrative courts in a complaint filed against an individual administrative act. This in spite of the Court of Justice's well known case-law that directives under certain conditions can have direct effect, as was first recognized in SpA SACE v Finance Minister of the Italian Republic of 17 December 1970 and confirmed by Van Duyn v Home Office of 4 December 1974.

No competence to review EC regulations implementing Security Council resolutions, according to the Court of First Instance – Worst of both worlds: critique from the perspectives of international law and Community law – Alternative approach on the basis of the firmly established European solange tradition.

The position of human rights within the European Union legal order has been an issue since the early years of the original European Economic Community. For many years, the development of human rights as general principles of Community law was characterized by dialogue and debate between the Communities' Court of Justice on the one hand, and certain national constitutional courts on the other, as regards the protection of human rights recognized in national constitutions by the Community legal order. But in recent years, there has been a parallel dialogue between the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, as regards the Community legal order's protection of the rights guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).