12 May 2025
Just Asking
Have you ever wondered why a legal text is the way it is, or whether its implementation actually works as intended? Typically, one would approach such questions by consulting existing textual material. If one is extraordinary inquisitive, one might even file access-to-document requests. However, sometimes one cannot escape the feeling that something is missing. In that situation, I suggest, one should do the obvious: talk to people who know better – ideally, the people working on or embodying the phenomenon one intends to research. Continue reading >>
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09 May 2025
Mirroring Society’s Struggles
The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) stands as a central institution in the European legal and political landscape. Its judgments not only shape the trajectory of European integration but also reveal deeper EU Law Stories – ideological clashes, conflicting narratives and distributive consequences with the subtle emergence of winners and losers in each case. Yet, these dimensions often remain hidden behind the opaque language of the increasingly lengthy rulings and traditional doctrinal analysis. Continue reading >>
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09 May 2025
Local Meanings of EU Law
Law can be viewed not as a universal (or European) science but, following Geertz, as local knowledge. To illustrate the relevance of this perspective for understanding EU law, its effects, and the limits of integration through law, this text draws on the findings of a “classical” comparative study on the application of proportionality as an EU law principle in three national contexts: France, England, and Greece. This type of approach has the potential to evolve – and indeed is already evolving – into an interdisciplinary exploration of the diverse ways in which EU law is understood, applied, and experienced in settings as varied as the Paagalayiri market in Ouagadougou, the train-line connection between Paris and Marseille, or the camp of Moria on Lesvos. Continue reading >>
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08 May 2025
(De)coloniality and EU Legal Studies
In EU legal studies, time, space, place, and knowledge are locations for contestation, deliberation and reconstruction. Other submissions in this symposium have elaborated on the limitations in understanding and accounting for the ‘what was’ as a fundamental blind spot of EU law. Extending from this starting point, I will show how decolonial approaches can bridge the gap between history, theory, and action, offering practical and alternative solutions for reconciliation. To do so, I will use the rule of law as one such site for contestation. Continue reading >>
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07 May 2025
Ongoing Controversies over Methods in EU Law
Since the publication of last year’s symposium “Controversies over Methods in EU Law”, methodological issues are still pervading contemporary debates in EU law. These ongoing controversies over methods in EU law reflect a broader rethinking of the discipline, influenced by multiple crises in the European Union. These crises have led scholars to question their relationship with the European institutions, which have been central to the development of the core concepts of EU law and of EU law as a disciplinary field. Continue reading >>
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