Of values and legitimacy – discourse analytical insights on the copyright case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) increasingly faces societal value-conflicts in EU law disputes. For example, in EU copyright law, in the digital age, diverse fundamental values, as well as cultural and societal developments, are at stake. This article discusses the role of the CJEU in the European value discourse, using copyright law as a case study. The methodological approach used, critical discourse analysis, is seldom applied in jurisprudential studies, but is well suited for teasing out value-related aspects of case law. Exploratory research of seminal copyright cases suggests that the CJEU’s discourse of the various values seems unnecessarily one-sided and shallow. A lack of discursiveness in the jurisprudence would diminish the legitimacy of the Court’s decisions, and would not offer adequate guidance to national courts or private decision-makers, to whom the Court at the same time may be leaving more of the task of value reconciliation.