The clear rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty by the French and Dutch electorates seems to reflect, at least in part, the uneasiness of many European citizens with a Europe which they perceive to govern "from above" with insufficient legitimacy, and without an adequate balance of free market vs. social concerns. The doctrine of supremacy may be viewed as the classic doctrinal emanation of such a Europe "from above", which, moreover, tends to favour a market-biased system due to the

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... ype of competences allocated to the European level. Against this background, alternatives which may create more legitimacy and allow for the strengthening of the social dimension are particularly badly needed now. Christian Joerges calls for an idea of European law as a type of supranational law of conflict of laws based on American conflict of laws methodology to organise the European unitas in diversitas. His paper originates from a seminar series in the academic year 2004/2005. The seminar was on risk regulation in the EU ("Playing with Nature I"), and at international level ("Playing with Nature II"). Time and again, we became engaged in debates beyond the disciplines which were dealing with, i.e., European law (in particular, administrative law) and WTO law. Christian Joerges was explaining a vision he had started to defend a decade ago 1 and which he was now seeking to bring to WTO level. Florian Rödl contrasted these ideas with the theoretical framework of his PhD project, 2 which deals with European social and labour law, but which primarily addresses the Europeanising community of private international law scholars. The seminar participants were mainly patient, sometimes bemused, sometimes curious, and, at the end, made a concrete demand: please put your argument in writing so that it becomes more accessible. After some reflection, it was agreed to organise a round table in the concluding seminar session with a broader range of commentators, including Jean Monnet Fellow Robert Wai, Marie Curie Fellow Rainer Nickel and Christoph Schmid, former Jean Monnet Fellow and now Co-Director of the Zentrum für Rechtspolitik (ZERP) in Bremen/Germany. At the 1 Die Europäisierung des Privatrechts als Rationalisierungsprozeß und als Streit der Disziplinen. Eine Analyse der Richtlinie über mißbräuchliche Klauseln Verbraucherverträgen, Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 1995, 181-201 [= The Europeanisation of Private Law as a Rationalisation Process and as a Contest of Legal Disciplines -an Analysis of the Directive on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts, European Review of Private Law 3 (1995), 175-192] 2 The preliminary title is "Conflicts Justice in and for the European Union" EUI WP LAW 2005/12 Christian Joerges and Florian Rödl 3 end of the round table, the idea of the discussion paper emerged, which we herewith submit (unfortunately without the contribution of Christoph Schmid). Damian Chalmers from the London School of Economics, a Jean Monnet Fellow in 2003/2004, was not present at the workshop. However, he had commented at another occasion and was kind enough to agree to this publication, which does what a working paper is supposed to do, namely, document an on-going discussion. And we would appreciate it if our readers also became involved. Ultimately, we would like to thank Chris Engert and Jennifer Hendry for their professional and benevolent treatment of our use of the English language. Christian Joerges, Florian Rödl EUI WP LAW 2005/12 * A very preliminary version of this paper was presented in November 2003 at the conference on "Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union", at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), and commented upon there by Damian Chalmers (London) and Erik O. Eriksen (Oslo). The present version emerged gradually thanks to the round-table discussion in Florence in February 2005, and a conference on "'Judicial Governance' im europäischen Privatrecht. Die Anforderungen an die europäische Judikative als Überforderung?", at the University of Luzern, at which Joseph Corkin (London) commented on it. I am hence indebted to many commentators and would also like to thank Jennifer Hendry for her manifold assistance in the production of this essay. The final version will be published in Beate Kohler-Koch/Berthold Rittberger (eds.), "Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union", (Lenham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).