The relevance of confederate structures in the judicial architecture of the Draft EU Constitution By George Tridimas Abstract The Draft EU Constitution reiterates long standing judicial structures in the European Community, like the appointment rule of “one-country one- judge”, the fixed renewable terms of service for judges and restricted access to the Court of Justice by individuals. The paper offers a critical discussion of these structures and using a formal constitutional political economy model it seeks to explain their complementarity and longevity. Key words: Court of Justice, judicial independence, judicial review, judicial appointment, judicial tenure, locus standi Published in Conferences on New Political Economy Yearbook, Volume on “Analyzing International Conflict Resolution”, March 2006, Vol. 23, 281-301 George Tridimas, Professor of Political Economy School of Economics and Politics, University of Ulster, Shore Road, Newtownabbey Co. Antrim, BT37 0QB E-mail: GTridimas@aol.com