20 March 2023
Integration and Disintegration
In our analysis below, we examine the convergent and divergent paths of Ireland and the UK on the theme of integration and disintegration in three stages. The first considers the constitutional context and framework within which each of the two countries chose to embark on the path of European integration by acceding to the EEC in the early 1970s. The second examines several key policy choices made by the two states along a continuum between integration and disintegration, as part of a more differentiated, post-Maastricht EU. The final stage examines the implications of Brexit for the UK and Ireland following Britain’s departure from the EU. Continue reading >>
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12 January 2021
Transnational Law’s Multiple Legalities
Almost seventy years after Philip Jessup coined the term “transnational law” as “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers…both public and private international law”, the public-private law dichotomy is still deeply entrenched in legal thought. This panel brings together scholars who have regularly transcended this dichotomy in their work to discuss how legal multiplicity is impacting on our understanding of transnational law today. Continue reading >>
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12 January 2021
Invisible Drivers Behind Formal Law
Formal legal rules do not appear out of thin air. Rather, their emergence is conditioned by frameworks that are invisible to the formalist perspective. This panel looks at how formal law is driven by an array of less visible factors: data, algorithms, and broader “background rules”. Continue reading >>
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03 June 2020
Repression of Freedom of Expression in Poland: Renewing support for Wojciech Sadurski
In pre-COVID19 times we drew attention (here and here) to the fact that our colleague, Professor Wojciech Sadurski, faces multiple civil and criminal cases in Poland resulting from his tweets which were critical of the ruling party. The cases were brought against him by the current government and its associates. Unfortunately, COVID19 has evidently not changed their priorities Continue reading >>04 February 2020
Wiley and the European Law Journal
We want to believe that no self-respecting scholar will allow himself or herself to be used in any way by Wiley to defeat the principled stand taken by the Editors and Boards of the ELJ. It is we, scholars of European Law, who actually give commercial value to such a journal by submitting and publishing our work in its pages. We should not be complicit in undermining the most basic values of the scholarly world. Continue reading >>
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18 November 2019
Stand with Wojciech Sadurski: his freedom of expression is (y)ours
Just days before the trial against Wojciech Sadurski in Warsaw, we write to seek renewal of your support, and for your help in keeping the PiS strategy of coordinated legal harassment against him, and the threat of a criminal conviction and an award of damages against him as well as hefty legal fees, in the public eye. The party believes that it can ride out the storm, and that by ignoring the protests they will eventually disappear. But they will not. Continue reading >>06 May 2019
Open Letter in Support of Professor Wojciech Sadurski
A call for an end to the repressive use of litigation by the Polish government and its supporters to punish freedom of speech. Continue reading >>09 June 2018
Open Letter to Vice-President Frans Timmermans
If the law on the Polish Supreme Court enters into force in the beginning of July, as is currently planned, a large number of sitting judges of that Court will see their tenure unconstitutionally extinguished. In combination with an increase in the number of seats on the Supreme Court, this means that the newly politicized National Council of the Judiciary, elected by the governing party, will be in a position to appoint a majority of the judges on the Supreme Court. 23 legal and constitutional scholars have signed an open letter to urge the Vice President of the EU Commission to initiate an infringement procedure against Poland. Continue reading >>10 June 2015
How just is the EU, or: is there a ‘new’ European deficit?
Let us face it: the EU affects the lives of many people in ways they perceive as profoundly unjust. Lives are dramatically affected by the policies of austerity, widely understood to be EU-imposed. With the Court of Justice appearing to stand for its own authority and EU autonomy at any cost; with migrants attempting to reach fortress Europe and drowning en masse as the EU cuts back its rescue services; and with economic inequalities in the Member States reaching new heights, could it be that there is a justice deficit in Europe, exacerbated by the European Union? It has never been made abundantly clear whether the achievement of justice is among the EU’s objectives, thus leading to a sub-optimal legal-political reality. There is an urgent need to address the question of justice openly and without reservation, and not to permit nationalists and Eurosceptics to monopolize this debate. Continue reading >>
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