Judges in Utopia The Transformative Role of the Judiciary in European Private Law

This article introduces four contributions to a special issue on ‘judicial law-making in European private law’, which seeks to reconstruct and understand (aspects of) the evolving transformative role of the judiciary in light of the interaction between the national and European level. The paradigmatic examples of climate change litigation and judicial dialogue in consumer mortgage cases show how courts are asked to address sensitive political questions in cases brought by private parties in civil proceedings. A ‘utopian’ (self-)understanding of the judicial task explains and justifies how and to what extent judges may address such societal problems through private law, and at the same time transform private law itself.