The Fertile Fear of the Abyss: Or, How the Rule of Law Crisis Spurred Judges to Mobilize European Law

In this contribution, I elaborate how the Rule of law (RoL) crisis in Europe has catalyzed a mechanism of judge-driven legal mobilization that is novel to the post-war context: “the fertile fear of the abyss.” In conversation with the interviews with judges in the edited volume titled "Dissensus over Liberal Democracy", I trace how the rise of illiberal governments attacking the RoL has jolted many European judges out of their entrenched bureaucratic routines into exploring new, public, transnational, and uncomfortable avenues of European legal mobilization. Although this EU-wide galvanization of judges should not be overstated and its capacity to reverse RoL backsliding is dubious, it undeniably constitutes a remarkable new chapter in the history of European legal integration.